Like a Fix
by jenni3penny
Summary: "What exactly was he sayin? He'd essentially just offered up stud services or sperm or, rather, both and where'n the bloody hell had that come from?" Callian.
1. Chapter 1

He stopped at the window and not to observe the mother and child on the other side of the mirrored glass. He'd stopped because she was staring, head tipped, through that glass like she'd seen a repetition of a memory that had been buried. She was sifting through it with unmoving fingers and unblinking bright eyes. Seeing sadness on her, seeing grief, it'd become a recognition of repetition. He'd memorized its existence on her face because otherwise she was often extraordinarily adept at hiding some things from him. But not a feeling so depth-less, not one that he'd made sure to know whenever it claimed her face.

Cal frowned as he shook his head minutely, losing some semblance of stability to the surprisingly open flood of her emotion. "It's not her."

He'd known what she was seeing just by the slight blanching of color in her pretty eyes, the slacked lowering of her eyelids as her gaze lost focus and she went somewhere deep and daunting without him. Which, frankly, she really didn't do all that often and certainly not in the office while Torres worked at her back. They stayed together, she and him. And even more so in recent months.

Gillian angled her head slightly toward the sound of his voice, the unnaturally patient bending of his tone as he stroked his palm up the back of her arm. "Hmm?"

"It's not her, darling," he repeated just as quietly, murmured it resiliently between them as he leaned up along the side of her turned body and made them an angle perpendicular to each other. "It's not Sophie, Gill. Not enough blue in her eyes, is there?"

Her lashes fluttered into one quick flinch before she jerked her glance from the child she was watching, jaw angling sharply as she met his eyes and exhaled roughly through her nose. There was a twist of betrayal twining her lips for just a fraction of a moment, marring her prettiness for half a second before she blanked her features to his watching and just nodded. She'd accept the truth from him, silently so. Not that she'd like it, but she'd accept it, and especially if he forced it by sturdy repetition.

"You're right." She turned her jaw away from his hushed concern, avoided how tentatively he watched her even as she looked back over the way the girl's mother was hugging her up. "I didn't... you remember that?"

Did he remember that the girl had bright and wide eyes, blue as her (not) mother's? Sure, yeah.

Did he remember how happily relieved her lashes had fallen against her cheeks when the baby finally, _finally_ , quieted to sleep along her shoulder with her chubby little face tucked into Gillian's throat? Of course he did.

Remembered being unable to hide his smirk the first time he saw throw up on silk.

Remembered watching her pack up the girl's things, too.

Well, after standing shock still in the doorway of a vacant nursery (after a phone call wherein she sounded near to dead as her voice had ever gone). Recalled watching silently as she'd chucked a baby monitor against the wall and shattered it to the floor.

"Course I do," he murmured low and near her shoulder, eyes near closed as she turned her head closer to his leaning. "She was your daughter, Gillian. Doesn't matter how many days it was, does it?"

He remembered every moment of her being a mother. It'd been impossible not to, really.

It'd been fucking torture (days of repetitive jealousy) but it had been so very worth it just to watch her feel love so strongly.

But he remembered seeing her lose her right to 'mother' just as keenly, especially when he looked up and found her watching the child again.

"It's not her." He lifted his hand against her jaw and tugged her back sharply, ignoring the fact that Ria's head had lifted into the jagged movement as his fingers had caught on her. "Look at me. That's not your daughter."

She jolted a little and so did his guilt, jarred right over him as she stared hard into his eyes.

It had been a shitty little trick of his mouth and she let him know it just by the fired hardness of her glance as she looked down and then back up him in eerie stillness.

He'd never promised to be sweet to her all hours of the day – and especially not when he was having such trouble bringing her back to him from somewhere he just wasn't allowed to go along with her.

"Can you and Ria do this?" The tone she used was so suddenly controlled and cool and clean in comparison to how intimate they'd become lately. So professional, really. And that was his punishment for having done exactly what he'd had to do to break reality over her. "I just... I have - "

"Yeah." His fingers curled along her upper arm and tugged, pulled her farther from the window as he jerked his head toward the door behind them. "I got it. Go."

She paused long enough in stepping away from him that he turned his glance up to hers, caught the blinking she made as she shook her head. "I'm sorry."

"No need." And he softened his own response just to meet with her quick attempt at near instant reparation. "Go on."

Even as she left the room he felt Torres' slight shift, her obvious staring as she watched Gillian go and then the half step toward the door. He cleared a harsh noise of negation off his throat and caught out against her arm, shoving her slightly back with spread fingers as he shook his head against the movement she'd made.

"Don't you dare." Vehemence and threat were so much easier motions to make than possibly allowing the girl into how awfully fucking painful every inch of him felt in aching. "You leave it alone."

"Yeah," Ria spoke with what seemed like legitimate understanding and an empathy that surprised him though he knew it shouldn't have, considering who she was and how much she could actually infer from moments that had any emotion to them at all. "I get it."

He turned away from how softly she was staring at him, blinking only once toward the glass before aiming his entire body into swinging open the door.

* * *

It had taken him nearly forty minutes to find her later that night, taken him asking around and getting next to nothing on answers as to where Gillian Foster might have gone. Couldn't have left, though. Her purse, her keys, her jacket, her surprisingly less than impeccably organized desk... they all said that she'd still been somewhere in the vicinity. But he'd checked their secret spots, their own personal hideouts and privacy corners and she hadn't been hiding in a one of 'em. Not at the railing, not chewing at her lip as she stared vacantly at the courtyard through glass, not sacked out on her couch with paperwork feathered over her lap and those glorious legs stretched out before her. And if she wasn't in those particular spots where he'd know to find her then his assumption was, well... she hadn't wanted t'be found. Not really.

But he wasn't entirely prepared to leave without knowing that she'd be all right.

Because she'd been sorrowfully quiet after he'd wrapped a hand against her arm and tugged her away from watching that (admittedly adorable) little girl.

Because he couldn't just up and desert her when Sophie'd been haunting them all over again.

And haunting it was, though worse. Because at least if the child were dead then Gill'd have somewhere to go to release this primal and undeniably whole pain that still sat on her chest at times.

"Sometimes I forget that you... that I wasn't the only one who lost her, ya know? I wasn't in a void. You were there."

The gentleness of her voice in his library startled him, caught him from above as he tugged his jacket from the back of the over stuffed chair. He smiled unintentionally into the fact that she'd apparently taken to hiding in his space and not her own, slowly turning and lifting his head so that he could spot her on the stairs. She was up at the top of the ladder, curled sideways so that her bare feet were a step down from her bottom and her head was leaning angled against the nearest rail.

Shoulda noticed her shoes on the first step before.

But he'd been absolutely distracted.

He usually was when in reference to her.

"Not what I meant by sayin' it, Gill," Cal breathed off as he dropped his jacket back behind him and took that first step up the ladder. "Y'know that."

"I do." Gillian nodded a quick agreement, her jaw lifting the motion higher as he took a couple more steps and then lowered himself sitting just below her, facing her way so that he could catch her legs over his with a slowly cautious movement. "I didn't mean to... I'm not starting a fight, Cal. I'm apologizing."

She watched him patiently and expectantly draw her legs over his lap, let him make the soothing movements under the study of dulled eyes as she rounded the back of her head harder into the rail. Cal traced the muscle of one calf, feeling her legs loosen a little and relax against him as he used the heel of his palm to rub into the muscle. His fingers soothed after each press of his palm and then back again and he lifted his head. He stayed watching how still she was under the comforting touch, how interested she was in watching the movements even as her face stayed mostly vacant.

She sucked a breath in after a moment, her head swaying farther aside as she seemed to shrug lower against the step and give his hands more space for touching her. "Just, sometimes I lose the big picture when it comes to her. I can't step outside of it enough to recognize that you were there. Eli was there. You both... you were both amazing with me after too. Have I ever _really_ thanked either of you for being so supportive?"

That'd sure been more of a mouthful than he'd expected. She'd been mulling it on her tongue for long enough to have it prepared, to know she wanted to say it and get it out to him. He didn't give her a physical response besides just massaging harder into her leg as he shrugged a sort of humility into her kindness. She was the one shattering all over and still, _still_ , being sweet. This woman... more than he deserved sometimes. And that he was sure of, actually.

"Hasn't been all that long, Foster. And we've all been through a bit since it happened, ya know?" His body jagged a little back and forth in explanation, uncontrolled until he squeezed against her. "Don't need to thank me for a thing. Certainly don't need to apologize for anything either."

She shook her head up, huffing a sound like a laugh through her nose as she turned away from his glance and lifted her hand to wipe her hair back. "I get so jealous of you sometimes."

Cal nodded slowly, feeling his shoulders tampen and tighten in response. "Emily."

"Yeah," she admitted without another movement.

"I know."

"She's amazing, Cal." She shook back with such a swayed heat to her tone, such an adoration in the way she said it. He felt his throat catch on a swallow just from the emotion he'd heard in her voice, let alone any he would have seen if he'd the guts to look up.

"Best bit of me." He chuckled, let his head drop into the way she'd seemed to lean closer. "Ever."

"That's exactly it." Her breath stopped a moment as her fingers pressed long and flat against the side of his head, wiping slowly down so that she could graze her nails along the side of his neck. "Isn't it?"

"You can still have it, Foster. You've plenty of options."

Wait... had he really just said it that way? Because, if she caught onto that then he was probably cooked. There was no way she'd let him live that down if she'd -

"I don't think there are." She shook away the words without entirely hearing the suggestion and he exhaled hard in relief even as he caught how saddened she seemed. "Not anymore."

"I'd give ya half of Em if I could." He recovered with a tip of teasing, leaning closer to catch the half smile the words brought over her lips."Seems both halves are spoken for, though. And I'm awfully selfish about my bit. Sorry."

"You've given me enough of Emily." Gill's smile went wider and more genuine as she lifted both shoulders, obvious affection surrounding talk of his daughter. "Being Aunt Gill is good. It's nice. A lot of payoff, limited responsibility."

"You're no aunt to the girl, Gillian."

He watched her tip him a confused glance, smiled into the movement of her head to assure her that he meant nothing negative by it. One hand stayed wrapped against her leg while the other lifted up under her chin, knuckles lifting her head up with a tap before he stroked his fingers along her lips and just watched her breathe out against them slowly.  
She blinked into the turn of his hand as he spread his palm on her jaw and let his thumb do the work against her bottom lip. "Well, no. I just - "

"Step-mum's more like it, really." He kept at the the touch, caught her lip down so that he could press against her teeth as he said it, feel the shift in her jaw and throat as she swallowed a whimpering mingle of ache and heat.

"Don't Cal," she shunted it out against his thumb as her eyes blinked shut, "don't do that."

"It's you'n Em that does it, Gill." He countered the thudded hurt in her voice with assurance, let his fingers brush down her throat as he shook his head. "Not me."

"Cal - "

"Who was it stayed up all night fixin' the matchstick longhouse dear old dad accidentally trampled? Eh?" The ramped tone was intentionally running over her disagreement, slapping away the very notion that she wasn't all and everything that he'd implied. "Who got fossils on loan from the Smithsonian Institute for a silly little Science Fair project, huh?"

She rolled her eyes into a shy but obviously scornful laugh, shaking her head down farther as his fingers teased at the collar of her shirt. "I still can't believe she only got second place for that."

Cal grinned at her response, her obvious chagrin at his daughter being somehow cheated in anything at all. "Who took her school shopping?"

"Zoe." Gill deadpanned at him starkly.

"Don't gimme that tripe." A tug at her shirt drew her closer and he took advantage of how weakly pliant and bending she was, licking a kiss off her lips and not even feeling guilty for it. "Y'think she didn't show me what y'bought her every year? And who's she talk to when she can't come to me?"

Gill let off a brighter laugh than expected and he felt his lungs loosen as he flashed her a grateful grin in response to it. Her voice went soft after as she studied his lips. "Only because it's about you."

"Sure, exactly." He couldn't help the smile getting impish and his tone getting cheeky – she brought it out of him, didn't matter the discussion. "She goes to her mum. One of 'em anyhow. One or the other."

She shook her head up, intentionally disregarding the repeated implication. Her eyes searching out over the little library before dipping down on his chair. "You can't give me Emily, Cal."

"No," he dipped easy agreement but lifted her a look from hooded eyes, shrugged into catching her lighter glance as she turned back to him. "Not Em, specifically. Like I said, ya know, spoken for."

Gillian's face went slack, brow arching as her head tipped forward and the shifting of her hair along her throat harshed a tight swallow down his throat. "What exactly are you saying?"

What exactly was he sayin'? Fuckity fucking, damn it all... he'd essentially just offered up stud services or sperm or, rather, both and where'n the bloody hell had that come from? And especially considering they'd never (oh, hell, never) had a conversation like this before. It was an unbroached subject and he was just as surprised as the size of her eyes said she was as she stared at him. Ah, screw it. She wasn't looking at him like he was insane at least. She was looking at him like they'd barely even met, actually. And it was telling when it came to how bright her eyes seemed as she studied his face.

Like he'd seen a shut door and just re-opened it for her. Bein' chivalrous, he was. Sure, that's all it was.

That and maybe a remembrance of that slick and oily spill of jealousy that had coated over him every time he'd seen her with a child that had somebody else as a father.

Not that he'd _ever_ tell her _that_ bit out loud.

Not that she didn't already know it, hadn't read it right off him.

"I'm sayin' you're certainty not outta options, love." Regardless of the fact he knew that an annoyingly prim and tactless obstetrician had told her not to ever get her hopes all that high (and that slim margin had previously been eliminated by a coke addled husband with a slaughtered sperm count). "Don't give up what you want until it's actually impossible."  
She gave him a veiled look, sideways and through thinned eyes. "I'm not sure it is what I want anymore."

"Now that," he tugged her chin down with a saddened but still solid whisper, pressing his mouth lightly into her lips before he nodded into her stillness, "tha's a lie, Gillian."

She shifted her legs sullenly from his slow movement but kept wide-eyed watching him, let him palm against her calf as he stood up and sighed into the stretch of his back. Both his forearms bridged against the side rails of the ladder as he cocked his head into leaning over her, hands loosely dropped from his perch. She idly tugged at his fingers, looking almost childish and trying to smile into the way he squeezed at her as he nodded acceptance of her continued quietness.

"You comin'?" Cal stretched back as her hand dropped back into her lap.

She avoided his eyes, too. Avoided seeing how well he knew her despite the fact he liked to remind her that sometimes she was unreadable to him. "I dunno."

A hummed acknowledgment throttled off him as he nodded and reached a hand up, slicking his fingers through her hair as she continued studying her own hands. "I'm gonna sack on the couch then. You let me know when you're callin' it quits, yeah?"

"Go home, Cal." Perturbation rasped on her argument as she shook her head and looked up at him, a slightly defensive sheen discoloring her eyes, looking glossy as she blinked hard. "I'm fine."

"M'not leavin' you when Sophie's in your head, Gill." It was an instant negation of her pressing, his fingers catching her hair behind her ear as he let his shoulders go slack. "You're seein' her everywhere these days."

Her head ducked into the touch of his fingers at the way his voice had stricken and swayed over the words. He hadn't meant it as an accusation, more a hint and admittance that he'd seen it wash up on her features over and over and fucking over again. And it was burying him. He didn't know how to fix it, didn't know what she needed. Of all the subjects they had difficulty broaching, Sophie had always been one of the worst, one of the hardest. Worse than him flippantly commenting on her ex-husband's habit. Worse than sparring over the Pentagon. Far more formidable than her snarky commentary on his sex life before it had _actually_ involved her.

Sophie had always been the untouchable subject. The thing they just _didn't_ discuss so much.

"I know." Gill twisted it back quietly, her hand lifting into how roughly she rubbed the heel of her palm into her cheekbone, glance darting into openly vacant space as she shrugged into an answer of nothing.

"Tell me why."

She scowled hard into the otherwise blanked staring, "I don't know."

"You lyin'?" Cal asked as he tipped his head into studying her face, watching her eyes thin a little as she actually considered his question rather than getting immediately defensive.

"No." She shook off before shrugging hard again, her fingers touching against her cheek as though testing how brittle the skin beneath her eyes felt. "Maybe. I don't know."

"Y'don't know if you're lyin' to me?" He leaned harder forward into her space, ignored how manic and spaced she seemed with a reach of his hand, fingers much lighter in the way they lifted her jaw than they'd been hours earlier. "Say it, Gillian."

"It's her birthday."

The explanation itself had him feeling like the dumbest man on the planet. Absolute fuckin' idiot.

How'd he not seen that coming? How hadn't he put that together, recognized the time of year and the way the season always seemed to pull her taut like near to snapping pearls on a string.

"Tomorrow is." He agreed, didn't question, just nodded.

"She'll be four."

"Really been that long, huh?" He knew she was right even in the realization that it felt both years longer and moments shorter at once.

"Yeah, it has." The string snapped then, brought her head down as she wiped against her face and entirely avoided the softness of the way he was watching over her.

"C'mere." Cal caught against the back of her head and kissed into her hair, letting his lungs deflate as he turned his face down into the heat of it. "C'mon, Gill. Em's already home and it's late."

"Cal."

He grunted a noise of disagreement into her, fingers already prying at her ribs as he forced her up from the step she'd been lingering on. "Not leavin' you on your own tonight, love."

* * *

"Gill okay?"

He smiled in response, felt how strangely ironic it twisted on his lips as he cocked his head. Emily's voice had been so reverently concerned, her fingers fiddling with the corkscrew as she twisted the wasted cork from it slowly. She let the metal drop clattering so that she could twist the cork and roll it through her fingers as she hawkishly watched his face for a clue of some sort.

"Not entirely," Cal admitted gently as he tugged a couple wine glasses down from the rack, shrugging as he set them opposite her on the island and exhaled his glance down over them. "Be all right, though. Thought you were goin'? Some fancy dinner or somethin'?"

"Well, I was but..."

But she'd picked up on something that she couldn't just let alone.

She'd seen a twist of something on Gillian, probably a mimicry of that same sadness on him.

And she was an obstinate child – not that he'd admit knowing where _that_ came from.

"Go on then." He tipped his head toward the open kitchen entryway, his hand taking up the freshly opened bottle by the neck. "It's all right, Em."

"Did you do something?"

He paused just before pouring, letting the bottle bank back onto the counter with a thud as he gave her a scandalized glance and avoided smiling into the accusation. "Why would you... why's it always my fault right up front, eh?"

"Well, with Gill it usually is." Emily shrugged as she reached for the bottle and pried it away from him, avoiding his glance as she shrugged and poured out two glasses slowly and carefully. "It's usually you doing something stupid or hurtful."

"Well, this time," he muttered back as he leaned a watching over how slim her hand was in setting the bottle down, "I'm bein' a courteous gentleman."

Emily frowned as her arms came up across her chest and locked there, "Not sure I believe that."

His grin wrecked right over his supposed indignation as he sussed just exactly how concerned she was by the nerved squint in her eyes and the slight little pouting on her lips. Her body was all about posturing, defensive and on the offensive at once, arms slung against herself with just a bit of an angle to her hips as she glared him down. Sweet little shit, her near instant defense of the way Gillian was curled solemnly up on the couch in the next room over had his lungs filling up with warm air and the haze of this unconscious but near unfailing loyalty.

"Would my face lie to you?" Cal questioned with intentional softness, letting the smile relax as he nodded once more toward the door. "Go on. Get out."

"You gonna be nice to her?"

He planned to be more than nice, not that he was gonna expand on that particular subject matter with his teenage daughter.

But _nice_ , yes, at the very least.

"Em... of course I'm..." his breath rushed off his lips as he took up both glasses and nodded forward, stepping around the island to meet her turning, "darling, I'm taking care of her. All right?"

She was studying him, her face blank of any emotion but some sort of near adoration as she let both her hands land onto his shoulders and nudge there. "Don't screw it up."

Cal chuckled and lifted the glasses away from her leaning and the dip of her kiss onto his cheek, letting her shove him away "Don't plan to, thank you very much."

"She seems sad." Emily offered into a whispering hush, her head tipping so that she could glance past his shoulder and pout a little into the woman's stillness.

"She is, a bit," he admitted, leaving the reason unspoken.

Emily tracked a glance over his face before she slowly took up her bag from the chair and nodded a slowly understanding smile in his direction, the curve of it on her lips a little less sincere than normal. "Well, I'll be back late."

"Be safe then." One glass went set along the counter as he caught into her sleeve and tugged her closer, shushing his lips into the way she jut her head toward his leaning. "Love you."

"Courteous gentleman," she demanded with a pointing in his direction, steps slowly leading her backwards toward the door.

Cal grinned at her assertion, the glass lifted slightly as the other hand swiped back and forth over his chest. "Cross my heart."

* * *

She was mostly still as he leaned the glass into her hand, the shift of her wrist and lift of long fingers the only movement to the way she blinked a grateful acceptance in his direction. The smile was muted but true, a twitch along the right side of her mouth as she watched him set his own glass to the table, lifting hers as though waiting for the way he flopped soundly onto the cushions beside her. Cal shifted sidelong up her, mostly curbing the movements of his body to her continued stillness as he let a hand lift along the back of her head. Her shoulders relaxed into the shift and he barely caught the movement, watching as she leveled the glass onto her bent knee and then let her head sink back into the cradling of his palm.

"My daughter's worried for your welfare, love," he teased at her gently, using the side of his thumb to rub into the dry warmth of her hair. "Thinks I can't be courteous in regards t'you."

"Your daughter's sweet," she answered breathily into the room, exhaling through her nose before she turned her head toward him and let soft blue eyes clasp his full attention.

He watched her face tense in seriousness a moment, unsure of what was going through her head as he laced his fingers into her hair. "Gillian?"

"It's okay." She just shook it off, shoulders both shrugging before she lifted the glass from its resting on her leg and toward her lips. "I'm just gonna drink this wine and you're gonna..."

"I'm gonna what?" Cal followed up softly, letting his voice tweak playful along her ear as his head dipped into how her body was relaxing against his. "Eh? Tell me."

"You can start with the kissing." Gillian murmured a private and refined little smile against the rim of the glass before taking a sip, her tongue taking up the leftover from her bottom lip before she turned him a smile that was ringing with amused pleasure. She was putting up a front, smiling through it as she sturdied herself and let her glance dip down over his mouth and back up.

He was always and ever astounded that she could recover so quickly, could so easily block the depth and darkness of her emotions when passing him a hazy smile.

"Kissin' I can start with, sure," he agreed with a gamely nod, dipping his mouth so that it was aimed just before her ear and landing kisses down her jaw. "I like that bit. You like that bit. Innocent enough."

Her head tipped on a near silent laugh, her throat humming under his mouth as he kissed farther down. His hand dug into her hair, the other lifting the keep the glass she was holding balanced as he felt her head fall farther back into his fingers. The twisted up way she'd curled on his couch shifted slightly under him and he lifted the glass from her stretching fingers, holding it hovered above her as her body slipped up under his leaning and both her hands curled into the front of his shirt. His smile turned into the sudden search of her mouth, swallowing a moan that came off her, feeling the confidence in the lift of her head as she pushed up into him instead of away.

Fuck, she was still a bold surprise some days – especially her pushing close instead of driving them apart. He still wasn't sure he entirely trusted it but, gift horses and all that.

"Gill?" He murmured it slowly along her lips, lifting the glass higher as her fingers dug into the front of his shirt, her head lifting with a half smirk.

Her eyes squinted teasingly at him as she tugged at a button, the other hand already ducked up under fabric to trace his stomach. "Hmm?"

"Darling, you gonna drink this or can I - "

"I want it," she argued quickly, head lifting into the words so her mouth was aimed in the direction of the glass.

She blinked back to him with what looked like challenge, the earlier sadness slowly fading beneath the rise of her pleasure as he shifted tighter down over her and complied into tipping the glass along her lips. He felt his throat lump up into how slowly she took down a slip of wine, hand lifted to curl along with his before she laxed lower against the couch and just melted him with a grin. Aw, fuckin' teasing little wench. She was dynamite to him when she her eyes went so lidded but blown blue, butane and bright but glittered hard at once.

"That's my wine," Gill accused with a whispered tone, brows knit as she licked the taste up from her lips and lifted her fingers from the back of his hand. "You opened my wine?"

"Yeah?" he swung back. "Gonna punish me?"

Her eyes went thin again, lips pursed up as she lifted her head back farther into the couch to study his face. Her hand casually curved over top of the glass as she shrugged over supposedly considering it, dipping a fingertip into the wine so that she could trace it along his lip gently.

"Shouldn't give you the pleasure," she sighed off as he nudged his mouth into the stroking. "It'd be rewarding poor behavior."

A laugh caught up in his throat as he slicked his tongue on the taste of wine. "Spicy little thing, aren't ya?"

"You like spicy." She countered on a lazily assured shrug, lifting her head to sip the last of the taste from his mouth with a brief stroke of her tongue to his. "Provocative women? Mysterious women?"

He watched her warily, cautious as to her words even as she smiled wider at him. "Gill."

"Cal Lightman can't get enough of a truly bewitching woman."

Her fingers took up the glass from him lightly and he blinked slight surprise into the hushed commentary, blinking as he shook off the accusation she'd made, astounded by the fact she still hadn't realized that nothing (absolutely fuckin' _nothin_ ') was more bewitching than the woman he just _couldn't_ completely read. "Can't get enough of you. I've never had enough you, Gill. That's right true."

"What more do you want?" There was a slight swing of confusion in her voice, but hopeful almost, near excited.

"Tha's a loaded question." Cal laughed up at her, met the brightness in her eyes with a smirking.

Her shoulder came up slowly and he watched how slowly her jaw angled toward it as she lifted the glass and took another swallow, the scent of it bloomed up between them. "Well, you've been full of loaded implications today."

Right, of course she'd remember that bit. 'Course she wasn't gonna let _that_ go.

That moment wherein his brain'd shorted out and all logic (all basic bloody reasoning skills) had up and left him on his arse and looking like an idiot.

Of course she'd remember that. Because she was Gillian.

And she wouldn't be Gillian without the ability to make him feel like a moron at random intervals.

"Gill, I want every little bit of you I can get." He explained into the flush of embarrassment that touched down his throat, had him swallowing hard as he avoided the amusement in her eyes.

"S'never enough. That's why I keep comin' back for more, in'it?"

She offered the glass lower, leaning it toward his mouth so that he had to take the slow sip she was offering as she exhaled slowly. "Is it?"

"I'll take whatever you give me, eh?" His fingers had managed to spread open the top of her shirt bit by bit (because at least his hands knew what they were doin' with a beautiful woman even if his brain was useless), the first two buttons gone undone to the dark lacy curving of her bra. "That okay?"

Gill nodded a hummed agreement over him. "More than."

He snorted against her collarbone, rubbed his face down the heat of her cleavage and felt her growl a feigned annoyance as he rashed a stubbled red against her skin. "Bewitchin' women? Unfair estimation."

"It's true."

His teeth nipped down the span of her throat, tongue following slowly and sweetly after each little bite against her. "Pretty provocative yourself, darlin'. Ditch the drink."

"I think I'll finish it." She lifted it higher even as the other hand clipped up along the back of his head, fingers threading into his hair and tugging affectionately. "You go ahead and finish what you were doing."

He glanced up in heady amusement as her hips slacked relaxed beneath his, her fingertips rubbing heat on him. "You cheeky wench."

The laugh that valved up her throat as she tipped the glass to her lips and her head back on a swallow had him groaning his mouth down her happily in acceptance as she answered, "Shut up and be courteous."

* * *

He could have used the newness of the position as an excuse for sleeplessness, gloried in the fact that it hadn't been all that long since she'd started letting him watch her fall asleep with her body backed up to his and her hand curling his arm up under her breasts. The very fact that it was a more recent occurrence should have been excuse enough for just staring over her as she slept, staying awake wide into the night just to watch an impossibility exist in front of him.

He'd done it before and often in the last few weeks.

Didn't feel a need to apologize for it, either.

She looked fucking radiant in her sleep, innocently curled up with him in a way that promised him something of a safety, an assurance, a promise.

Always felt like closing his eyes to it would be losing its possibility.

Wasn't the reason this time, so much. Not as he curled his fingers against her lower ribs and slid his hand out from under the loose lay of hers. Sure, it'd been reason enough plenty other times. But not when his brain was misfiring and jittered and she was still so fucking calmly still under the spread of his palm as he braced her ribs and then stroked his hand down the naked front of her. She made a weak sound in her throat that slowly vibrated into a sleepy moan and he bit against the inside of his cheek, making it a memory of a sound. Cal let his fingers spread flat against her stomach, driving his face into her hair as he wedged the heel of his palm against her pelvic bone and pulled back against her. He kept his hand flatly controlled as she unconsciously snugged back, a whimpered little noise just barely breaking past her throat and through her nose.

He kissed her awake and he wasn't all completely sure why, just kept strafing his mouth to her lips and cheek and back until she moaned awake and caught her fingers up curling against his jaw, head shying down and dipping toward her shoulder to avoid the playful assault.

"Wha's wrong?" Her voice was muddled up with sleep but light, the entire front of her curled up tighter, her legs tucking up as she dragged his arm closer into the center of her body.

"Nothin'." Cal shushed against her ear, nipped lightly against it as he palmed his hand flat against her stomach and dowsed his face into her hair. "Bloody gorgeous."

Gill's head lifted in a slow shift, her jaw turning back toward him as she stretched into the pressing of his fingers and the heat of his breath. "What's wrong?"

"Nothin'. I told you." He lowered his voice and let his tone sway affectionate, let her hear the brush of warmth to it as he snugged tighter around her a moment. "Goin' downstairs."

"Cal - "

"I gotta work, darling." Cal rubbed down the side of her neck, letting his lungs exhale and then fill back up with the way his smell tainted all over her skin. "Brain won't shut off. Doin' the Lightman thing. Makes the money, yeah?"

A disgruntled noise went hoarsely up her throat and she dug her nails into his forearm, laid right in with force and disagreement. "Stay, Cal."

"Got a theory. I gotta – it's half formed. Half unformed, so t'speak."

"You're so strange." Gill cast back tiredly, letting her head lean into the way he was still upped over her shoulder even as he started tugging her onto her back. "I'm still naked."

She had a point. Was still classified as 'miraculous' in his head that she was in his bed at all, let alone without a stitch of clothing on. He was obviously a bleedin' fuckin' idiot.

"You need me and I'm just down the stairs, promise. I just..." a groan rolled off him as he blocked his hand between them, started at her forehead and then shifted over her more widened awake and damningly pretty eyes, "fuck, stop lookin' at me, now. Close your eyes."

She laughed lightly into how gently he palmed his hand over her eyes before pressing down, keeping her head backed into the pillow as the words tumbled off her lips, "You're the one that woke me up."

"Love this. And this." He was rushing the words and kisses down her throat, deflecting by raking his teeth on her collarbone before he angled lower. "And this bit."

"Don't go." There was laughter sparking up through her voice and he swallowed a groan at the sound of it, keeping his kisses light and fast and brushing down between her breasts as she flagged flat into the mattress and roughed through his hair.

He'd shelter her laughter much as he could considering the look that'd been on her face hours earlier.

"And this," he shot lightly against the inner curve of one breast before kissing on skin that had become terrifyingly but perfectly familiar.

"Cal?"

"Just have to do some comparisons. Wanted you to know," he assured softly, lifting his head in a nodding as he met her eyes and watched them go slimmer to sleepiness and affection. "Go back to sleep."

"Exceptionally strange." She accused with a sweet tone that said she liked that bit of him more than she ought.

He grinned into it, lifting one shoulder in a proud shirking, "Why, thank you - "

Interrupting lips rushed his into groaning and he felt her laugh trip into his mouth even as he pushed himself away from her, slapping lightly against her bare thigh as he forced himself from the heat of her and off the bed.

"Cal?" Her voice whined a little after him, the tone of it deep and sensually thready even as a little petulance cut through it.

"Stop it, Foster." His fingers lifted in a feigned accusation before he waved over her, squinting in a play at being authoritative. "Be a good girl now. Right to sleep."

A sigh silted off her as her back relaxed into his mattress, head slacked back into the nearest pillow and hair loose over it, "Put your pants on before Emily comes home."

He gave a jaunty shrug as he stretched up the door frame, making a scrunched face at her just to ignore how silkily light she looked against dark sheets. "Y'don't tell me what to do. Grown man, I am."

She turned her smile against his pillow, let her cheek rub against it on a nod that said she was just sleepily placating him before she stretched into the space he'd left, curling up on her side. "Not too late."

Cal grinned unintentionally, shook his head into the realization of it as he forced himself off the frame and down the hall.

* * *

All his humor, his sweet protective silliness... it had disappeared somewhere. Blankly gone from him, his house, his everywhere – and she stopped along the edge of the living room in search of some semblance of it. Instead she found a ragged mess of books and papers and old photographs dumped across the table, the couch, the floor. The room smelled like burnt coffee and sweat and his frustration, sex and heat still lingering on him even as he scrubbed his hand at his hair. His laptop was open and brightly glaring a blued light into the room from the center of the chair's seat. He was bent forward, body half awkwardly crouching over a stretch of nearly ten photographs, some ragged and some shined new. One of his hands was rubbing unrealized against his scrunched forehead and he was unconsciously shaking his head back and forth as if in silent argument with himself.

His eyes, even in the low and muted light, had pinned on a certain sort of angry focus.

His body was taut and strung up and even as he fidgeted the fingers of his free hand hovering over one of the photos he'd been staring at she noted that they were minutely shaking.

Seemed even he despised whatever it was he was thinking, the disgust evident in the mouth she'd found so safely comforting hours before.

"What the hell are you doing?" Gill asked it gently, tried to curb any negativity from her tone even as his head shot up in response.

The slinked thinning of his eyes seemed almost accusatory, distractedly annoyed in the way he was looking at her. Which was nothing of the way he'd looked at her an hour or two before.

Nothing near the gently warm way he'd been searching over her while trying to disengage a glass of wine from between them and kissing her freely and with some sort of loving. He'd shifted left into darkness in the time they'd spent apart, in the time since he'd intentionally distanced a floor between them and settled into some flitting theory that had grasped his attention and refused to declaw from his brain.

"Waitin' for Em." he grunted back before reaching for the book that had been laid open and pressed flat in submission beside him.

Well... Cal Lightman was, in all his variations, still Cal Lightman. And it wasn't as though she hadn't spent years of moments right in the middle of some of his finer tirades or wallows. She (very momentarily) felt a little swing of apology in Zoe's direction. Living with this particular Cal Lightman for long stretches of time would be walking a barbed tight-rope, wouldn't it?

Wasn't it? Hadn't she already learned to live with it in a decade?

But now it was... personal, intimate. Now it breathed from him into her and clouded up in her lungs until choking up her throat. And now it was legitimately breaking her heart rather than just stirring around in her head.

"No, you're..." her steps were calculated and timed to how slowly he was flicking pages before triumphantly slapping the book open beside the stretch of photos – all of them women, all of them in variant degrees of distress and sadness, "what is this?"

His fingers fidgeted back over the photos as he flatly refused looking at her, denied lifting his eyes to the sight of her in his shirt as she neared the table, his fingers tapping the nearest photo. "New Guinea."

"I know where it is." Gill agreed, the particular image faintly familiar as she stepped up to the opposite side of the table, letting her body lower down gently to the carpet so that she was kneeling across from him, her head dipped. "Tell me what it is."

"Her son's just died, right?" The long stretch of his hand waved off the image, palm up and fingers curled as he just shrugged and continued to ignore meeting her eyes. "A disease that could have been prevented. But, modern medicine? It's not of her world. It's - "

"Cal." She sighed out his name quietly and was thoroughly surprised by how easily the one exhausted syllable seemed to stall him silent, how just letting go of his name so desperately had finally made him meet her eyes.

It didn't completely stall him though. Not enough to waylay where his mind had gone and come back from and probably still half was lingering. Not when he looked at her and his brow shifted higher just before he nodded jerkily in her direction. "There. Right there. Y'just did it."

Confusion filled her face even as she watched him, his entire body shifting and shunting forward on the cushion so that he could mash up the stack of photos and then toss them in her direction."Bangladesh. Lockerbie. Waco. Oklahoma."

She stopped seeing them after the first few, intentionally turned her head away from the repetitive look of pain on an unfamiliar woman's face. Tried to block how still familiar hurt felt when he was intentionally goading it from her, trying to coax it back over her features just to make a point – and not necessarily a point that she was prepared to tackle with him.

Not when his voice broke just as harshly as his hand shoving the book open across the table and slapping against the full page photo. "Migrant Mother photo, right? Dorothea Lange. Dust Bowl Era, yeah? Anguish on her face."

"Don't do this."

"I saw it on you, Gillian." The pitch of his voice went higher, strain in it as he argued against her deflection. "I _saw_ it. Today. Two days ago. A month ago."

She intentionally drew a slow breath, "Cal."

"Three years ago."

"Stop." It was nearly impossible not to sound angry with him.

Especially when his insistence was starting to actually piss her off.

"How did Alec miss it?" And he kept at it anyhow, mention of her ex-husband cracking open the flood of anger from her as she glared in response, caught a quick little slip of pleasure over his face as he realized that he'd struck just the right crack to create a fissure. "How'd he not see it?"

Gill shook her head at him slowly, pressing the book and the photos back into the center of the table with a disgusted shunt of her hand. "Don't turn this into an argument about Alec. It has nothing - "

"He did see it. S'why he couldn't look at you anymore without wantin' a fix." He was nearly crawled over the table at her and had she been able to step from the moment she would have found how awkwardly energetic but stilted he moved as something comical, something she could pin as sometimes iconic, adorable and specific to him. "It's maternal. And it's devastating. And I can't..."

The sudden rise of his body was bent out of sheer frustration and he shoved at the papers and photos as he stood, both hands flaring out over them, "Why's it what I can see? Why's this the thing I see on you when other things are just... blanks?"

Desperate. He sounded distinctly desperate in his confusion, his frustration, his utter loss of comprehension. And that alone banked her anger back – because it created an imperfect weakness to the frenetic shifting of his body and the silly way he'd obviously tugged his Henley on backwards without even realizing it. Which...was adorable, but had her chewing against her lip.

She shook her head as she lifted it, letting her shoulders fall lax as she gave him a bitter-sweet smile and breathed out into how obviously insane she made him, "You can't formulate an entirely new micro expression theory based on the fact you have feelings for me."

The very ability to unconsciously get Cal Lightman plussed and riled and stumbling into a fit of furious confusion... she was proud of that, in a way. In an admittedly twisted little way. Because it meant he was encompassed, it meant he was focused. It meant he really was enthralled and entirely true in his adoration of her. And maybe enjoying that was sort of sick in a way but... at least it was honest. It was plain veracity, evidenced by a messy living room and his inability to control himself in regards to her.

But she wasn't convinced that it was worth his hands gripping up frustrated just before he wiped over his face with such exasperation.

A derisive snort came off him as he stared over her, chewed into his cheek a moment before his voice went sweetly soft. "Formulated the latter half o'my life based on the fact I got feelins' for you, love."

"Pain is pain, Cal. You can't decipher what type of pain..." her voice curved softer and she saw him slough off a look of distaste at her tone, knew he hated it when she cooled her voice quiet and sure and kept it intentionally controlled,"it's the same. Visually, sadness is sadness. It's a proven theory – your theory. Why - "

"Not when it comes to - "

"Not when it comes to me?" Well, she _had_ been able to control it, at first. And then he'd had to open his mouth and ruin the tentative hold they'd had. "Nothing is the norm when it comes to me, is it? You can't fix this, Cal."

"Yeah?" There was distinct acid in his countering, his eyes thinning as he shrugged nearer toward her and gave her a look that had her rolling her eyes as though he were a snotty teenager. "Maybe I can."

God, sometimes she hated that smug little flicker of his ego, the way it just popped up between them at absolutely the worst moments. Like he was the obvious fix, the sole solution to an impossible equation. Like he had (or was) the correct answer to a problem she hadn't been able to fix for years before she'd even met him.

Only Cal Lightman... Except there was a slick little trickle of something warm on her skin that said, well, maybe the answer really was 'only Cal Lightman'... hell, he was more often right than wrong.

"That." He damn near yelped it at her and Gill lifted her head and instantly forced her face passive as she stared at him in response, pressing back as he lifted his fingers in recrimination toward her face. "That was hope."

She swallowed that implication of hope, that flash of whatever he'd seen and traded it for certain reality because she knew he sure as hell wouldn't. "It would never work. It's not possible."

"I've my hands in two businesses that shouldn't work, things nobody believed would work. The firm and this." The jittered force that ran his movements suddenly seemed all strong in the lift of his hand, his finger pointing directly at her as he let the words keep thrumming off him. "Both of 'em grounded by you, love. Both of 'em half your business too."

She felt herself sway into the implication, the way he was so perfunctorily honest about keeping her a significant and permanent half of his life – as though it was a foregone conclusion. As though the decisions they had made over the course of a decade had been on an unseen cosmic demand - just to get to a point wherein they were halves of a whole. Gill swallowed sharply, exhaling as she fisted into the shirt she was wearing and met the way he was watching her with insurmountable scrutiny, his attention rising from her mouth to her eyes as his hand dropped. A huff of surprised breath came off her before she licked against her lips and bit into the bottom one, shaking him a speechless but loving look.

He suddenly smiled at her like he'd managed to finally and completely suss her out, find the exact combination needed to disengage whatever was locking her chest up in a pent up breath. "Didn't expect eloquence and truth at once, love?"

Her head shook back and forth a little as his hands came up in a sort of silent and shrugging explanation, cheeks flushing up as he reached against the hand she still had tensed into fabric, pulling at her wrist to draw her closer.

She breathed out slowly, letting him pull her, "Emily is going to college, Cal. Your daughter is old enough to go to college and you're considering - "

The noise he hushed her with was warm as it traveled his throat, dragging her around the table to tug her into his hips first. He was surprisingly unruffled and gentled in the way he was speaking to her, his face having become passive as he met her eyes. "Look at me. Tell me, honestly, that you don't want it."

"I can't." Gill argued into the quiet demand.

"I know that." He finally chuckled a breath of half relief between them, prying her fingers slowly off the way they were still blindly clinging to warmed fabric as that bemused affection from earlier came back over him and loosened his shoulders back. "Why y'think I'm not lettin' up?"

"It would be... insane."

"Insanely fun, darling." The fervor in his voice wasn't lit by frustration anymore, if anything it was amusement and, oddly, excitement. "Trust me, I been there. It's everything and more than you think. Worse at times - way worse. But so much better than expected."

Excitement or teasing and she was still a little too unfocused by him (just him, in general) to be able to pick between the two. She'd long since missed her chance to pick out the pieces of his tone, too mentally scattered up by what is was exactly he was saying. Or, rather, what he was trying to say without being able to actually communicate like a normal human being.

Gill dipped her jaw lower, searching over his smile. "Are you mocking me now?"

"No." His hands caught hers up and she was mildly surprised by how intensely he dug his fingers into the centers of her palms. "Gillian... no. Course not."

Hell, he was so much better than most _normal_ human beings and he had absolutely no idea.

She knew for a fact that he didn't realize that, didn't even accept the very possibility that it was true.

"Lemme give you what you want." He was muttering it while rubbing her fingers and the fact that he seemed unnaturally unsure of himself in doing so drew her attention sharper over the way he opened his mouth to say something before pausing, reconsidering, the colors in his eyes mushing up as he obviously decided to say it anyhow. "Lemme at least try, Foster."

She ducked lower into his fidgeting, catching the impish grin that touched over his lips as he realized what she was doing and deeply angled his head at her, fingers loosening from hers so his palms could shunt her closer. "Because it's what I want?"

"Because you're not the only one wantin' it." Cal jutted back sharply, a flushed and shy smirk fleeting over his lips embarrassingly before he nodded. "And, yeah, exactly. Because it's what you want. And if I can give you everything you want, I bloody well will."

The unfortunate reality was that she rarely could deny him when he was being so gently and honestly and stripped bare sweet. And he had no true ability to completely clear the swamped warmth in his voice. He never, never had. She sighed when he tugged at her, pulling on her hips slowly as he hummed a gentle questioning noise. Gill nodded an unconscious agreement before he dragged her tumbling onto the couch with him.

She felt exhaustion weigh on her suddenly, felt how hard it pressed her down into him as he slacked himself into the cushions and tugged her straddling over him. "What if it still doesn't work, Cal?"

"Then we finally get that puppy?" He tapped the tease against her sternum with a cheery nodding, a grin shattering over his lips when she flicked him a glare. "Promise you can name it somethin' insipid."

"You're an ass."

"I'll be 'round back in the middle of the night in my slippers, callin' for Daisy." Lightman's penchant for screwing off and being silly was limitless and, she knew, especially when he knew it'd get her laughing into how lightly he was tracing his fingertips on her cheekbone. "Daisy, get the fuck back here. Daisy, don't piss on the roses. To the left, Daisy, to the _left_."

"Stop it." Gill drifted her eyes shut on a muted laugh, leaning into the breadth and slowness of the touch, letting him turn his hand so it was his knuckles grazing a comforting on her skin.

"What?" He feigned a defensive pitch, raising his tone higher as she let her palms relax into his chest and press there, enjoying how solid he felt under her hands. "S'what I did with Em. Pup can't be any harder."

Gill opened her eyes when his fingers found their way trailing down her throat, studying his face and still finding a tenseness around his eyes that spoke past his teasing. "You're completely serious about this."

"Can't keep watchin' that look." He admitted defenselessly, shaking his head into the statement as though he had no other excuse to make, no other reasoning necessary. "Can't let it be the only thing I see on you over and over again."

"It's not." She murmured defensively, leaning farther forward into his hands and how slowly they were stroking flatly along her thighs. "I show you - "

"No, it's not." The agreement from him was just as soft as he squeezed against her legs. "But it kills me, Gill. M'not Alec. Can't find a fix that'll... you've always been my fix, haven't ya? It's why we're here in the middle of the night, strung out. You're my drug of choice, darling, and that sadness is ruinin' my high."

"You are smart enough to know that having a child is not going to stop me from feeling the way I do about Sophie, Cal." She offered a kiss onto his lips and let him draw it out longer than she'd planned, enjoyed how fluidly lazy he made it happen.

"Not just about Sophie, is it?" Darkness had fused into his eyes again as his mouth twisted a little, his shoulders tensing under her fingers. "It's Emily. It's the little girl in the cube. It's every mother you've gotta face every day knowin' that they've got what you so badly want and I can fuckin' _see_ it, Gillian."

Her fingers tensed into his shoulders, the breaks of her palms shunting weight against him with unbreachable seriousness. "I don't want to do this just because it's what I want."

"It's not."

"Not just what I want?" Gill asked quietly, trying to find his eyes and noting the downturn of his jaw as he refused to look up.

He shirked up a sullen little pouting of agreement while he fidgeted the buttons on the shirt she was wearing. "No, not entirely."

"This is Cal Lightman saying he wants - "

"And with you," he interrupted smugly, lifting his head as she searched her fingers on stubble. "It's Cal Lightman bein' bare honest."

Despite the fact he still couldn't seem to entirely say it out loud.

Gill nodded slowly as she pressed against his jaw, "I can see that."

"Cute when I'm vulnerable, eh?" His brows came up in surprise but his voice was flush with amusement and haughty pride. "You think it's sexy."

"I never said that." she shook her head into the sound of the front door, how softly Emily's steps landed down the hall as she shushed herself into the mostly darkened house.

Cal exhaled on a shied grinning, tugging lightly at the front of the shirt, drawing her down farther so that he could squint playful accusation up at her. "Didn't have to, didja Foster?"

Gill just let off a long breathing sigh as Emily's steps neared closer, "We really doing this?"

His eyes held hers, lips quirking a barely there smirk as he cocked his head and shrugged an unquestioned agreement.

A snort of obvious derision matched the thud of Emily's bag hitting the floor as she paused in the doorway. "You guys seriously waited up for me? I'm a big girl."

"Don't get too awfully excited." Cal shot back as he dropped his head back on the couch, "We were working."

Emily gave them a scant glance before one brow shot up as she searched over the scattered mess of papers and photos and books. "I see that. You made a mess."

"Your father made a mess." Gill corrected gently, avoiding the proud grin the words brought up over him. "It's what he's good at."


	2. Chapter 2

He'd launched himself onto the bed beside her like an over-excited toddler, the paper prescription bag tucked into his chest as he'd made an intentional ruckus about getting comfortably seated. Gill had laughed quietly at the over-exaggerated movements and turned her head into studying him, expecting a smile, that characteristic and shit-eating grin of his that was so often annoying but equally as adorable.

She found, instead, a thoughtfully concerned color clouding his eyes, swirling them up dark as he looked over the way she was slacked back on the mattress. "What?"

Cal shrugged, suddenly seeming defensive as he frowned a glance down into the bag, drawing out the injections and the sterilization pads to distract from how easily she marked his concern. "You take your Clomid?"

"And the Heparin," she agreed with a nod, still watching the tension that marred his face, tightening his brow and the movements of his hands as he set things aside.

Gill watched a near smile twitch over his face as he reached against her shirt and scrunched up the fabric, a slim margin of his playfulness returning as she wiggled lower on the mattress and rubbed her head back into the pillow. She let him shove against the thin cotton, his fingertips taking a nip along one of her breasts before gently wiping down her stomach. The tickling trace of his fingers against her side was expected but she played into his teasing just to keep him coming back from the worry that had been weighing him down from her.

Seemed it was only a temporary fix, though. Because his palm stretched warmly and possessively against her stomach, his knees pressing into her sides as he pushed against her abdomen and sighed. That same tentative cautiousness came over him and an uncharacteristically shy look took over his face as he peeked up at her, eyes hooded and dark all over again.

Her hand snaked down under the stretch of his wrist, fingers finding the band of his watch and tucking under it so she could rub against the tension that corded up the tendons there. "You're making me nervous, Cal. Stop making that face."

"Well, it's not every day you ask me to stab you in the stomach with a bloody gigantic needle."

"It's not gigantic," she dryly sighed up at him, letting her whole body loosen into the mattress in an attempt to induce some sort of calming between them, loosely wrapping her hand around his wrist and squeezing a warmth of support.

Cal clasped up the packaging the needle was in with the other hand, winging it up and back and forth between them. "It's not necessarily small, darling."

It was, actually, a fairly small needle. Smaller than she'd expected and, actually, smaller than the practice needle that one of the technicians at the clinic had shown them. A small needle and a simple subcutaneous injection, one that they had both already practiced in the clinic (though, under supervision). An act that diabetics everywhere didn't blink about. But just by the concerned wideness of his eyes she imagined that both the needle and the act itself seemed gargantuan from his perspective. A bittersweet smile tilted over her lips as she studied how pursed and tightly lined his mouth had gone. She laughed as he chewed into his cheek and groaned, still staring at the needle in his hand.

"Do I need to do it myself?" she asked gently, shifting her arm up and against the pillow so that she could rest her head back against it.

"No, I'll do it," he murmured as he watched her breasts shift into the movement, letting his glance linger back down the front of her lazily. "Just not an expert at jammin' needles into beautiful women."

Gill reached over her body, giving his sleeve a tweak and a tug as she shushed her words into a warmly quieted teasing. "Things are slow over at the flophouse, huh?"

"You're hysterical, you are." He blankly handed her the sterilized needle packaging and took up the swabs as she watched.

"Relax, Cal," she offered quietly, even as he tore open the swab with extreme focus. "I can do it."

"And so can I. Just... it's not a joke, love." The sincerity in his voice made her body lax even farther, her shoulders loosening from their own tightness as she studied his face, watching him slick his tongue between his lips. His eyes avoided hers even as his voice went intimately quiet, personal and serious and not at all what she'd expected from this experience. "It's important, huh? Big moment, yeah?"

She'd expected cocky swagger and teasing and a load of references about giving her a good poke or something along those lines.

She found him to be surprisingly, gently, quietly affectionate instead.

"You're a funny little man, Lightman," she murmured with approving softness.

"Oi." A frown knit lines between his eyes and scrunched his nose up, blinking at her with supposed offense. " _Little_?"

"Sorry." Her whisper washed between them with a smile, eyes softened as he matched the movement and winked a silent acceptance of her apology. "No more jokes."

She watched him quietly, followed the intentionally studied movements of him as he wiped down the spot on her abdomen that they'd been shown, his movements intentionally sure and slow.

There was a tenderness to the movements that seemed to match how cautious he was about the entire situation, lent into nervousness rather than his usual brass.

"You washed your hands, right?" Gill teased at him quietly, resting her hands into her chest and unconsciously fingering the bunched up fabric of her shirt.

"Knew I forgot somethin'." The dry snark of his tone went blank to her and she just exhaled into forced relaxation, loosening her limbs out as he dumped aside the used pads.

She closed her eyes into his movements, silently let her left hand shift into his lap and curl into the inner seem of his jeans as he went through the motions they'd been taught. She kept her eyes closed, felt him gently pinch up on her skin and breathed through the prickling sharpness of the needle and the feeling was gone before she really had time to react to it. Her hips loosened as she felt the shifting of his hands again, the purposefully slow movements of him and the rustling sounds of him disposing of the needle, the packaging and ephemera.

Gill shifted her head toward him, kept her eyes shut and instead took in the smell of him close, the heat of his proximity as he shifted into movement but didn't go far. Even as he moved slightly away she felt his palm stay possessively warm and pressing against her stomach before he shifted back over her. The lagged sound of a breathy laugh rustled down between them and she finally opened her eyes, finding him watching her with a comically long tip of his head and a grin on his lips. Her hand trapped over his and tightened down, fingers gripping in the sturdy spread of his palm as she returned the smile.

"You good?" he asked quietly, a fleeting glance down the front of her before he met her eyes again.

She nodded swiftly, feeling all the tension leave her limbs and muscles as his thumb rubbed idly against her skin. "Yeah, all good."

He blew out an expansive breath, the light in his eyes brightening up as he cocked his head farther at her, looking almost childishly innocent as he searched her face. "How many days?"

"Twenty one for this one."

He nodded marginally as he took in the information, seeming to swallow it down into his body before entirely accepting it. After a moment he gave up a good-natured shrug and rubbed along her stomach, tickling up her side as he stretched his legs out, energetically flopping onto his stomach at her side. She smirked into his show of exuberance, tipping her head closer as he dropped his chin into his palm to watch her with hooded eyes.

"And the next?" he nodded for her to continue.

"Another week." Her shoulder lifted slightly between them, voice dipping quieter as she answered and his eyes roved over her mouth, studied her lips with an arched look of near longing. "Ish. Little more."

"A month." he replied into leaning closer, still focused on her mouth until he kissed her, slowly but strongly and with a confidence that settled that earlier concern.

Gill exhaled as he ended the kiss, his lips dropping down onto her bare shoulder a brief moment before he huffed and slouched into her side. Her jaw lifted into how intentional his shifting was, his entire body snugging up into her side as he flopped his left arm out over her and let his cheek flatten onto her shoulder. There was still a distinct warmth to him, a flushed heat that smelled like his cologne and skin and just the nearness of his affection. It was familiar but still, somehow, exhilarating.

"Not horrible then?" he mumbled into her shoulder, the pressing kisses and tired accent making his voice nearly incomprehensible.

She sent her lips brushing against his scalp. "No, you did great."

"Placatin' me?" His accent clipped quietly into her shoulder, head slightly lifted.

"Yes." Gill admitted on a grin, feeling him snort a half laugh into her. "Just a little."

* * *

For all her sweet little teasing... what she didn't realize was how bloody much she scared the ever-lovin' crap out of him. Every inch of her, even as she wiped down the counter with a damp cloth and kept at cleaning up after dinner, every bit of her terrified him to fuckin' pieces. Because doing what he had done, pushin' at her to take that particular jump with him, hell it had near stopped his heart still a few times. Starting with how suddenly she'd seemed to agree to hormone treatments and fertilization processes and the like. Most recently ending with injecting her with, well, he didn't even know what. What if the side effects were worse than advertised? What if she had a reaction to them? And what if, after everything, nothin' worked? Empty hands and empty promises.

Cal watched her over the top of his laptop, not realizing how deeply he was biting into the inside of his cheek until he actually nipped pain through his mouth and grunted quiet annoyance. He scrubbed his hand tiredly at his face and slacked back on the island seat, ignoring the video he'd been scanning, the work he was _supposed_ to be doing instead of watching her.

Couldn't help himself from the watching, though.

Not after what he'd done. Not considering the weight of the decision and especially after they'd put forth far more action than just words or wishing.

"You're..." The words stuttered up on him, though. He felt his tongue go weighty with stupidity and an inability to actually say how he was feeling. "Gill?"

"Hmm?" She distractedly dumped the rag into the sink, grabbing up a dry dish cloth to wipe her hands on as she lifted her head into meeting his glance. "Yeah? Sorry."

"We're together on this, yeah?" His hand came up between them, waving a nervy agitation that matched the confused way he was speaking. "I mean..."

A smile perked on her that was more bemused than confused, the towel going to the counter as both her palms pressed out flat and her weight went forward. "God, I hope so."

"M'not pushin' you, am I?"

"Cal," she murmured, voice just as soft as his question had been, "I don't usually go along with your idiotic plans unless I'm sure there's a possibility of greatness, do I?"

A dry chuckle took up the un-rented space in his lungs, humor pressing up against concern as he considered her point in silence. His arms slung against his chest, head tipping to watch as she pressed off the counter and side-stepped the island, moving toward him slowly with knowing eyes and a smile that near made him forget they were trying to have a serious conversation.

Because she broke his heart and knit it up again when she looked at him that way – and every fuckin' time, never failed. Like she knew every avenue of his brain and the paths it took – had the map memorized, she did.

"Well, when y'put it that way," he shrugged at her playfully, exhaling into her attempt to lighten the conversation.

"We're together." Gill agreed with a quick and distinct nod before tugging against one of his arms, pulling until he'd slacked farther back and opened up a space for her to lean into. Her mouth caught up on his, lips chastely pressing before she drew back just enough to give him that smile all over again. "Promise."

Cal studied her face intently, finding the nearest to truth he could ever rightfully see on her. "Just... making sure."

"Worried I'm doing it for you and not for myself?"

He mocked her a sardonic look, cocked his head at her as he squinted and clutched her up closer. His arm looped on her hip as he shrugged. "That thoughtful, am I?"

"Not generally." Gill teased back, letting her shoulders bank her forward so that she could lean her weight into him, giving him an excellent view down the front of the shirt she was wearing. "We're together."

Cal felt a groan in his lungs as he dragged his glance up from her cleavage and got stuck up on staring at her smile instead, unconsciously dipping his head closer to it. "Same page?"

She lifted her head away from his leaning, nodding once but away from the kiss he was trying to steal as she playfully shoved at his ribs. "Same page."

His hand jerked at her shirt, tugged her up closer anyhow and hauled her half into his lap. The instantaneous grip of her fingers, the way she pried up the fabric of his pant leg was meant for intimate balance but it just jerked on his heart and lungs and had him kissing her sharply. The pleased little moaning she made into his mouth spurred him on, had him sucking along her tongue with appreciation until her hands pressed at his collarbone, urging him back.

Cal watched her face as she blinked lazily, studied the relaxation on her features as her palms stroked against his shoulders and gripped at him. "And if it doesn't work? Just don't want you to... shoulda thought this through a little better."

"I've been thinking this through for years, Cal." Her head tipped, giving him leeway to kiss along her jaw as she snugged closer. "I don't wanna think anymore. Doing feels good."

"Might not work, darling. Don't want you - "

"Getting my hopes up?" she whispered on the corner of his mouth, kissing away the conversation with an obvious diversion, her mouth brushing heat past his.

"Am I speakin' here?" The mumble was more about the fact he desperately just wanted to kiss her silly and for as long as possible but, damn it, makin' a point he was. "This a two way conversation?"

"I already know what you're thinking, Cal." Gill sighed out the admittance, lifting her head again to match his eyes, to enforce her sincerity as she allowed him a clear visual. "It's okay, seriously. Just the attempt might actually help me get past it, ya know? Last-ditch effort."

He felt the righteous grin strike up on his mouth before he could help it. "And y'chose me?"

A jagged sigh rushed off her, loud and exaggerated as she slacked around, her body slumping back into him as she shrugged. "I got desperate."

"Oh, really?" It growled up his throat, head cocking into the question as he plucked at the fabric of her shirt, fingertips already finding a ticklish bit. "Desperate, eh?"

"Stop." She slapped at his fingers, batting at how surely he tugged her up into his chest and closed up around her, looped on her waist and found purchase along the middle of her. "No, no, no."

" _Desperate_ then?" he whispered along the side of her head, tickling mercilessly at her side and up the stacking of her ribs. "Is that it?"

Had the laughter on her face, in her eyes, valving off her throat – had it been otherwise, he woulda stopped. But he kept at it, locking her up and back into his chest while intentionally finding the spot that he knew could near make her piss her pants with laughter if he kept at it. Turned his head into watching her as she threw her head back against his shoulder, one of her feet wedging on the island so she could try to wriggle away from him. The free fall feel of her hair against his cheek had him cinching her up tighter in pleasure.

"Cal!"

Read faces, he did.

And hers was legitimately happy.

That was more than enough for him.


	3. Chapter 3

She was once again reminded, while watching him, that he could be one snide and cocky son of a bitch. That even just the tipped slant of his body against the table was enough to make it seem as though he thought himself above the moment, that the lazily (annoyingly) bored way he went near horizontal to the table itself just read as him being... a complete and utter shit. Because he made it seem as though this particular interview was beneath him, as though he was seriously offended by the fact he'd been asked to share the presence and space and breath of someone so idiotic as the man across from him. She watched his sluggish shoulders shrug off again once more, his head lolling as he fit his chin into his upped palm and muttered back to the suspect that they were supposed to be interrogating.

Cal found it so seamlessly easy to disengage from other people sometimes, to peruse them even while interacting with them, manipulating their emotions, their responses, before they'd even realized it was done. Rather, he made it seem easy. Conceptually she knew it was all part of just... how he worked. He'd learned and trained himself to see _everything_ , even to his own detriment. But it was flawless, still. Even as the other man became more agitated, he stayed so lackadaisical, so... supposedly uncaring. He was calm, calculated... brilliantly sexy, actually. And it had her studying the lines of him more intently than usual. Gill tipped her head into watching him wave his hand between him and the other man, blinking at the length of his fingers and swallowing a sigh as they flattened back to the table. She realized that she'd been distracted away from doing her job, shook her attention back as Torres shifted closer along her side.

"He missed it," the younger woman muttered through her teeth. "Bergman just blatantly - "

"He didn't miss anything, Ria." Gill murmured quietly but strongly, kept her eyes on Lightman's slow and sure shift of movement. His shoulders lifted before the rest of his body and very suddenly, in a movement so fluid the other man hadn't registered it, he was leaned mere inches from the suspect's face. "He didn't miss a thing."

She felt her lungs trap tight with how vulnerable the position made him, a plethora of possibly violent scenarios playing out through her head as he leaned even closer into the larger man's space and quietly said something that obviously drew reddened fury on Bergman's face. Her shoulders tightened a fraction of a moment before Lightman's entire body slacked back into the chair once again. His head turned just slightly toward her reactionary forward movement, jaw lifting as his eyes stayed on the suspect's silent face. Cal shifted the chair back on a slow scraping sound, the noise of it echoing past the glass walling of the cube.

His glance found her as he stood from the chair, barely a moment of eye contact and she'd lost his attention.

Still, he was heading for the door in moments, leaving their suspect in a confused silence.

* * *

"You pulled back." Her heels made a stark and staccato rhythm against the flooring, palm sloping up the back of his arm to trap his attention as he tried to shy past her out of the lab. "What happened?"

"Don't know what you mean." His assertion was clipped and instead of slurring up his accent as usual he enunciated tightly as he stepped past her, avoiding the confusion on her face.

"You were right there, Cal." She caught into the fabric of his shirt, leaned longer into the side of him than he'd obviously expected, his head turning sharply to take in her face. "You had him - "

"And I can get there again now. In a more stable environment, yeah?" His arm looped on her, tucked her up the side of his body as he steered her intentionally around and in the opposite direction. She let him do it, though. Let him lean her away from the lab and back around in the direction of their offices. Mostly away from the staff that was still working various aspects of the case. "Know what buttons to push."

"You could have tripped him up. You were so close," Gill argued quietly, letting her head turn into his leaning, allowing herself the pleasure of just appreciating the lines that crinkled out from the corner of his eye as he grinned into the accusation. "I know you. I know that face."

"Gill - "

"What happened?" she asked sharply, lowering her voice as she searched his features and forced him still at once, her hands digging into his shirt to stall him up. One dug into the fabric at his back and the other went flat along his chest and she may have made the movement intentionally because it slanted her up the side of him in a way that always, always, distracted his attention in her direction. Curling up on him tended to pause him, even mid-rant or half through some of his more manic moments. She knew it, tried not to abuse the knowledge. But, God, sometimes she needed the proverbial anvil to drop right on his hard idiotic head.

He was still half smiling when he shrugged into the way she'd forced them up stopped in the hall, his chest turning more into facing her while he studied her face. The smile faded off after a moment though, his eyes focused over her mouth and then up to meet her glance. A shift of his shoulders as he held her eyes and sighed.

"Looked at you, didn't I?" His words were softly and quietly made between the two of them, his head tipping into the explanation so that she had to angle her jaw to keep track of his expression. "Could see it on your face, plain as day."

"Fear." She supplied softly, apologetically, letting him loop her fingers up in his and tug lightly on her. He curled the hand she had on his chest into his own and swung her half around, stepping her backwards and toward his office door with a gentle carefulness that told her he was completely aware of each precise step they were taking. He was guiding her steps more than the grin that was taking over his lips again implied, his hand drawing hers up and gripping tighter. She let him drive forward into her, matching their steps in an awkwardly playful dance toward his door. His other palm smoothly found her hip and gripped her closer as she tried to refuse laughter.

It wasn't easy when he was being silly sweet.

It wasn't easy when she legitimately adored this side of him.

"Tried to hide it, though." Cal murmured, squinted at her but good-naturedly. "Didn'cha?"

"I didn't like you in there alone with him," she answered just as quietly, feeling the shift of his hand up her back and knowing from that movement and her peripheral vision that she was mere inches from his office door. "Not while knowing what he's done."

"Because? C'mon, say it," he demanded with a shit-eating grin, looking more than proud of himself as he thumped the both of them into his door, trapping her up with both hands skidding her ribs. "Because you're madly in love with me."

Gill cocked him a wry glare, let a sigh huff through her as both her hands caught the heat of his scruffy jaw. She rubbed the heels of her palms up and down the rough stubble, letting him lift his face into the movement. "What's the difference now, Cal? I was in love with you a month ago and you still ended up trapped in the basement of a burning building."

"Not an ounce of that situation was my fault, Gill. I was merely - "

"You're no innocent, Cal Lightman." She gave a decisive shove into the middle of his chest, shunting him back a step as he grinned as close to sheepishly as he could probably muster.

"I know."

Gill nodded, keeping him stepped back by force in her fingers as he leaned weight into her pushing. "And so?"

"And... so, well, we been workin' toward a goal, right?" He was steepled toward her, leaned into the press of her palm and adding weight just to be a mischievous pain in her ass. "I mean, m'not gonna be intentionally moronic while you're watchin'. Not if there's a chance - "

"While I'm _watching_?"

He winced at the dragged tone she used and she caught the flick of amusement in his eyes even as he nodded into correcting himself. "Won't be quite so intentionally moronic in general?"

"Getting closer." Gill agreed, loosening the force in her wrist and setting her palm flat to his chest so that his weight went forward, his body leaning back up into hers.

He caught himself mostly into the door, one of his hands balancing the weight into the wood even as he nudged up the front of her and tightly snugged into her. Gill rolled her eyes but let her muscles go loose, relaxing back into the door as he placed himself up entirely into her space and watched her face, curiosity and adoration both mirroring each other in his eyes as he smiled softly at her.

"And I could see it on your face, y'know?" His shoulders lifted a shrugging explanation, more emotion in his tone than she'd expected. "Because you love me and you were scared and I just kept thinkin' that it'd be a really horrible time to get myself dead or mangled, ya know? Especially considering you could be - "

"You know I'm not," she said into a hush. "And we haven't - "

They hadn't actually gotten a spare moment for all that much flirtation, let alone actual sex, since the last test had shown that she wasn't actually pregnant. They'd been caught up at the office as soon as they had returned, walked right into a request from the ATF to assist on the Bergman investigation.

She hadn't been surprised, though. She'd expected that exact result. Nothing.

She had expected nothing, forced herself to expect nothing (at least that's what she told herself).

"Right, but the point bein'... ya know?"

Sometimes he seemed like a stilted teenage boy, one who would rather tug at her hair and haul ass than actually say what he was thinking, what he was feeling, say anything.

"No, I _don't_ know, Cal." Most of the frustration had sifted out of her voice, dropped into just a more bemused mocking than actual annoyance. "You'll have to say it out loud, preferably in clear English, _darling_."

He cocked a widening smirk as she mocked him for the endearment, her impersonation actually right spot on as she slumped farther back against the door and let her head tip back into it. A chuckle came off his lips as he leaned longer up the front of her, one palm flattening to the door as he squinted an intentionally warm perusal down the front of the teal blue she was wearing.

She knew the fabric hugged on her and the twitch in his fingers made it seem as though his hands wanted to try the same again, itched his fingers toward touching her. His free hand skirted her hip, his grin going wider as she let off a pleased sound into how deeply he thrust his thumb rubbing along her pelvic bone.

"A beautiful woman the likes of you freely gives a man like me permission to try and, y'know?"

Gill quirked a brow up at him, holding his eyes with an arch glance. "Knock her up?"

"Not the phrase I was considerin'," he quickly countered, fingers flitting off her momentarily before dropping flat along her stomach again.

"The words 'up' and 'duff' come out of your mouth and I swear to God, Cal - "

She tasted his breathy laughter as he interrupted her by way of kissing, his hands digging on her waist as he sloped the both of them harder into the door. The instinct to back him off while at work went faded and worn just by the shift of him and the sudden eagerness, the strength in the kiss. One of his hands went caught up under her jaw, stroking her throat as he unabashedly slicked their tongues together. She mostly entirely forgot where they were, just by the taste of his amusement and the warmth in his hands.

Damn him. He was far too often far too goddamn charming for his own good (her own?).

Especially when he made a questioning little hum along her lips, as though he'd just remembered to ask permission to kiss her at all.

"Point bein'," he whispered against her mouth, eyes lidded near closed as she kept him hugged up close along the front of her, "I got other things to consider right now, right? So takin' a step back until circumstances are a little... safer?"

"Mmm hmm?" Gill asked into the lift of his head, the sound coming off her throat lazily.

He just gave her a shaded smile, half self conscious. "Not the worst of ideas, is it?"

"No, not at all," she agreed into pressing another lighter kiss against his lips.

The very movement, the tenderness in the way she did it, just the fact she'd done so at all seemed to have startled him a little. His eyes went wider and he looked her over with a squint, suddenly intently focused on her face as she smiled back. A shrug that seemed to say she'd entirely given up on curbing him seemed to come off her before she'd even realized it. It really was becoming pointless, anyhow. Not like the entire building wasn't more than aware, more than observant and professionally studying them like some sort of example of volatile but inevitable emotional attachment.

"Just got some brownie points, eh?" he taunted, voice chirping at her. "You're dark in the eyes, _darling_."

She felt the flush rise on her throat at how intentionally sensual he'd dropped his tone on the last word, that term that made her feel cherished more often than not. He'd always had a long-lasting ability to lower his voice into a gritty quietness that killed half her resolve, swilling up the warmth of his accent just to finish her off. Hell, she was damn lucky he didn't use that grated depth of voice and brushing heat more often than he already did.

"Don't want you in the room next time, all right?" he murmured, the switch of subject matter drawing her head up to catch his watching. His eyes had gone dark too, but more with intensity and focus than lust or leering. He'd gone serious, something on his face making him seem near seething.

"Because then you can ignore your conscience?"

"No," he cast back sharply, mocking offense that she'd even accuse him of such a thing (that was absolutely a legitimate argument to be made), "because I don't like the way he looks at you. Don't need the added distraction, either."

Gill smiled into how he curled around her regardless of their supposed bickering. "Him or you?"

"Don't like the way he looks at you," he muttered again as he caught against the door handle, this time with thickened accent and a strong thread of anger. Something else too, something distinctly possessive and threatening in his posture.

"A lot of men look at me, Cal."

He grunted half annoyance as he clutched her up close, jerking at the handle as he shook off her teasing smile and aimed her into his office, "Don't remind me."


	4. Chapter 4

He smirked into the way she finally, less than gracefully, ambled down the stairs and into the kitchen. Her shoulder was pitching her balance into the wall, sliding her down the steps slowly and into the room sluggishly. One slim and long fingered hand was rubbing against her eyes, brows knit unhappily as she headed straight across the room and toward where he was seated at the island. He pushed the laptop back as she bent leaned into the edge of the counter on her elbows, hair crowding her face messily as she made a pouted face at him. Cal tipped the cup he'd been holding in her direction, letting her sip from it as he snorted up a silent chuckle. The look on her face was still distantly sleepy and not at all awake, her blue eyes sheened toward gray as she licked along her bottom lip.

"Mornin', love," he said softly, leaning his mouth into the way she playfully pouted for a kiss as well. Her silliness belied the pinching of her eyebrows, the half slant of her lips toward smirking led him to catch her jaw up in his fingers and pinch her still as he kissed at her. "You a mime this morning?"

"I'm grumpy this morning," Gill replied softly, sleepily. "I don't wanna be up."

He angled the cup at her and weaved it toward her hand, smiling as she took it into both palms and cupped it up to her mouth, swallowing the coffee down a little more greedily than the first round. Gillian let her glance glint over the screen and rolled her eyes when she found him watching Loker in the lab via security cameras. She stepped into the way his hand was idly tagging against the bottom hem of the Henley she still had on, rubbing lightly against the back of her thigh. Her head bowed into his shoulder as she groaned sleepily, the cup lodged between them.

"How long have you been awake?" She leaned her upper body back to sip at the coffee while his palm rubbed up the back of her leg. "Six?"

Cal shrugged, shooting a glaring glance back over the live camera feed. "About then. Whatcha think he's on about? He's been sneakin' extra time in all week."

"Showered, shaved, did dishes, made coffee." A tame smile was tweaking her lips as she denied answering him, utterly ignoring his obsessive curiosity while one warmed palm stroked his freshly shaven cheek. "You're such a good little wife."

She laughed into the teasing pinch he gave the back of her leg and ducked away from him, purposefully ignoring the hemming noise he made as she kept his coffee and finished it. Gill gave him a near flirtatious glance back before pulling down another cup to fill them both and he just let his eyes settle over her from behind, breathing in slowly through his nose while he watched her move. The stolen Henley and white socks made him smirk wider as he shook his head and slid the screen on the computer shut.

He could happily watch her do absolutely nothin' for days at a time...

Christ, especially when she was so at home in this space, owned the rooms of his life like they'd always belonged to her in the first place.

"Breakfast?" he asked her softly, still enjoying the view of her. "You hungry?"

Gill just shook her head rapidly and walked back, setting down the other mug while she kept his in her hand. "M'not feelin' it today. Breakfast and I are not currently in a relationship."

"Cold-hearted woman, you," he answered, curling up the cup she'd poured for him while the other hand went searching for the back of her thigh again. He winked into the way she jumped at the slightly ticklish and teasing touch, a near squeaked little whimper coming up her throat as he flicked his fingernails up the back of her right thigh. "What'd Breakfast ever do t'you?"

She shrugged tiredly into him, leaning toward the strong curve of his shoulder as he sipped at coffee and cupped his palm around the back of her leg. "Queasy."

"Knew that might happen on the meds though, eh?" Cal dipped his head, trying to draw up her eyes and failing as she just cradled back into his side and upper body.

Her grunted sound of annoyance met his shoulder before she muttered into the fabric of his shirt, her coffee cup leaned into his chest for balance. "Crampy."

He'd known she was off, known just by the jittered and obviously uncomfortable way she'd been sleeping. Fitful noises had been slipping through her sleep for more than an hour before he'd left her the bed and all the blankets. He'd known by how tightly she'd been clutching into his shirt despite how sweated damp it had become. The fact that she couldn't seem to still herself up in her sleep, couldn't manage to stay in one seemingly comfortably position. After half an hour of fruitlessly trying to hush and soothe her he'd just ducked out of bed, layered the blankets over her and left her space to try and get some rest. Wasn't gonna sleep with her so obviously uncomfortable. And especially not when his own sleep had been sporadic, brain running off in multi-directional tangents and spinning theories that didn't make any more sense in the day-time than they had in the night.

But the fact she was obviously still off, and the very idea that she'd so willingly let him know it? Instead of trying to hide the fact?

Tugged on every one of his worries, least all the ones regarding her.

"Look at me then," Cal demanded gently, upped his jaw into the seriousness of his tone and waited out how slowly she looked up at him. There was a subtle annoyance on her features but it was nothing compared to how tired she seemed and especially around the eyes. "How bad?"

"Eh, just... blah." Aptly put, because she seemed just about as 'blah' as she said. Her entire frame slacked a little more weight into him and he set his cup down just so that he could take hers from her fingers as well. Both went side-by-side before the laptop as she hugged up on him. "Just... off."

Gillian was an affectionate woman and more so when it was just the two of them, especially when they were alone at home and most especially when she was still wearing just her knickers and socks and the thin-worn Henley that she'd confiscated from him within the first few weeks of living together. But she wasn't... clingy. She was too independent to hang all over him and the very fact she seemed like she was about to crawl into his lap for some semblance of comfort had him knocked sideways-silent. He let her hug into him, brushed his lips on her hair and frowned down how strongly in instinct to slap at whatever was making her feel so seemingly insecure was. Knew what it was though, didn't he? And partially his fault for convincing her to try something that my have seemed ludicrous when viewed realistically. Neither of them were getting' any younger, were they? It was the medications souring her up, causing her discomfort.

"Wanna stay here?" he mumbled guiltily into her hair.

She surprised him with a quicker nod of agreement than expected, her face burying deeper into the crook of his neck as she sighed. "I think I actually might. I can still get some work done here."

"Work can wait. Go back t'bed." His fingers found her hair and while she would usually preen a little into the stroke of his hand through her hair she just stayed limply still, her weight pressed evenly into him. "Call me later, huh?"

"Not that you'll answer today."

Well, she had a point, really. Cognitively she knew that he'd get himself distracted and enmeshed in his work and despite the fact that he loved her beyond bloody reason, he'd probably miss any call she made. He had another interview with Bergman lined up, under Federal supervision. The man was playing with him, with them, teasing the whereabouts of his victims' remains and if he could just get one slipped up piece of information then...

Right, she was right. Any call she made would probably be put on hold until he had the time (the mental focus) to really devote to it, to her.

"Do it anyhow, huh?" he murmured softly as she disentangled them, knowing that even just seeing the missed call would let him know she was all right. Her palm pressed into the center of his chest to separate them and he watched her pick up her coffee again, watched her mouth land along the rim and he found himself jealous of the ceramic, regardless of how crummy she seemed to be feeling.

"Be nice to Loker." She hugged the coffee mug into her sternum as she nodded agreement, both small hands wrapped against it and holding it like a shield of some sort. Small, yeah, that was the word. She looked... smaller and more delicate than usual. "He's trying to impress you."

"Impress me more if he actually - "

" _Cal_." The wearied hissing of her voice caught him up and he flicked another scrutinizing glance over her features, caught how tightly knit up her brows were as her eyes dipped shut. There was discomfort on her, living right beside minor annoyance.

And he despised it, equally hated himself for putting her in that particular position.

"Right. Bergman shouldn't take more than a couple hours," he told her gently as he stood, tugging up the fabric of the shirt that was now hers and jerking her closer. "Call this afternoon. I'll answer. Swear it."

Gillian gave him a patented smile of adoring patience but there was still a tight little line of something sick on her brow as she lifted her head from the cup, "Love me?"

"Beyond the bounds of sanity." Cal sent another searching look down the front of her, feeling his face project concern despite the fact he did what he could to cover it. "All right?"

"I'm fine." And she just rolled her eyes at him, kissed him soundly before turning back toward the stairs with his stolen shirt and pilfered coffee cup. "Goodbye, Cal."


	5. Chapter 5

Two could very easily play at being overly protective – and especially when he'd left his computer sitting on the island. And if he thought for one millisecond that she wasn't going to be somehow involved in all things Walton Bergman – regardless of how she was feeling - then he had clearly lost all basic reasoning skills.

He may have been more fierce about it, more overt and public in his displays of possession, his tendency to make it inordinately clear to everyone that getting to her meant getting through him first. But she had a far more subtle hand and a gentler touch when it came to protecting Cal Lightman from most anything, and primarily _himself_. So she smiled proudly to herself when she caught sight of Ben Reynolds on the video feed, let her head tip farther onto the throw pillow in relief as she watched the interview carry on. She hated how tinny and quiet the volume on his laptop was but, due to his own rampant paranoia, he'd left open the perfect window into watching an interview he didn't want her anywhere near.

"Movie time?" Emily's voice masked over one of Bergman's quiet responses and Gill avoided the urge to frown at the interruption, instead just curling up tighter on the couch and lifting a smile toward the teenager. "Feeling any better?"  
"A little," she answered softly, noting the fact that Emily had a bowl of soup in her hand as she neared the couch. "If that's for me you're wasting a perfectly good can of soup, sweetheart."

"You should at least try to put something on your stomach." The girl's voice was a distinct tonal merge of Cal and Zoe. All of his confidence and assurance, all his stubbornness, his affection - but melded warmly with Zoe's strength and sassed wit. "Is that dad?"

"He doesn't want me in the room." Gill hummed off quietly, the off-putting scent of the soup reflexively turning her head away from where Emily was setting the bowl to the coffee table. "I'm a distraction."

"You are," Emily snorted out blatantly, taking up the space on the opposite end of the couch as she hawkishly watched the screen, "to him, I mean."

"I know."

She knew she'd smiled into the admittance and she caught the flick of unabashed happiness that flashed over the girl's face, only briefly and then gone. Gill watched how easily and probably without realization the teen just blanked her face from showing any particular emotional response. The moment both amused and saddened her a little – that Emily had probably learned the habit unconsciously, but that her life had been so saturated by the same knowledge that often made it difficult for her father to even have relationships with other human beings.

"Don't do that, Em." Gill murmured quietly, shifting so that she was sitting up more against the arm of the couch before she nudged a socked foot into the side of the girl's leg. "Don't you dare hide how you feel. Your emotions are valid. Express them."

"Psyching me?" Emily asked to the side with a half smirk, still interestedly watching the slanted way her father was leaned over the interview table. His whole body was slouched out, as though the Cube itself was his living room rather than where they were seated. The rumbling sway and accented valve of his voice was quiet and low through the speakers but despite what he may have been saying, the sound of it warmed between them.

"Your father can't turn it off," Gill offered quietly, unconsciously reaching up to tug the tie from her hair and shake it loose with light fingers. "Your father is cynical sometimes, Emily. He's guarded but he can't help it. A lot of what he's seen - "

"Twice as much as most people."

"Exactly." She nodded swift agreement, still studying the girl's profile. "But he wouldn't want you building the same walls up. He wouldn't want that for you."

"I have a question. Okay?"

There was a familiarity to the way Emily said it, a comfortable ease as she stretched into Gill's side without questioning the movement. Gillian let it happen, bit into her cheek to keep from smiling too widely into how easily the teen just snugged onto her side and made them a layered pair across the couch cushions. She lifted her hand and just barely hesitated before letting her palm slick against soft waves of hair, letting her palm settle to the crown of the girl's head as the both of them watched the screen with halved interest.

"Ask. You know you can," Gill answered softly. "What's up?"

There was a breathy pause that hitched the girl's lungs before she just dropped the words out. "How long have you two been trying to have a kid?"

"Wow." It wasn't necessarily a question she wanted to answer on her own, not while Cal was off messing mind games with a murderer. Still, the hum of his voice, quiet and drifting into the room as he interviewed Bergman, at the very least it was a flare of support, some sort of heat that spurred her into slowly nodding."Jumped right in there, didn't you?"

"Clomid?" Emily's eyes were brighter toward caramel as she looked up, her face panning flat and emotionless as she met the older woman's searching glance. "I know how to Google, Gill."

"Your dad told you - "

"Yeah, but... how long has it really been?" Emily asked with obvious interest, her face once again emotionless, merely curious as she watched Gillian's face for a physical response before the verbal one.

Just like her father. Good God, the girl was going to be an excellent judge of character – not that she wasn't already.

Gillian nodded into answering, letting Emily see the truth on her face as she fiddled light brown hair into her fingers. "A few months."

"In vitro?"

"Possibly," she murmured, even as she continued rubbing a long waved curl up in her fingers. "After awhile. We haven't decided."

"He's a good dad." Emily just shrugged it off as she said it, engrossed by watching Lightman on the screen, her face showing obvious interest and affection.

Gillian just smiled, felt it warm her cheeks beyond their own near fevered flush, "Yeah, I've seen the evidence."

* * *

The kitchen was mostly dark, save for the light over the island. Cal checked the lock on the door behind him, tipping a glance over the way Emily was leaned over a book and obviously ignoring his presence. "All right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Her answer was quiet, a page flick punctuating how oddly still the house seemed around her. "You're late tonight."

"Good day?" he asked brightly, watching the slacked shrug she gave off as she continued reading. "Where's m'girl, eh? Want her to hear something on the - "

"Bedroom." Emily's answer was another quieted murmur, her body leaning farther into the island and her feet hooking tighter onto the stool rungs for balance. "She's sleeping. Leave her alone, dad."

He paused in his movement toward the stairs, the shifting weight in her tone stalling him up and turning him back toward the way she was watching him with hooded eyes. "She all right?"

"You know she's taking, like, an alphabet soup of medication here, right?" She flung the accusation, and it was meant as a sharp one, just as she flicked her fingers toward the medication bottles she'd lined up on the opposite side of the island. "I mean, in combination? It's insane."

"Em," Cal exhaled, dragging his glance off the meds and staring her down into a sudden seriousness. Something in her demeanor, the obvious frustration, it tweaked harshly on him. "Gill all right?"

"Little dizzy, headache. Sick to her stomach." Cal stepped toward her slowly as she explained, watching her glance fall unseeing toward her book as her voice hushed down. "She called her OB and they're telling her it's probably just side effects."

Cal stepped into her side and leaned angling forward, turning his jaw so that he could watch her face and study the bittersweet sadness on her, the way the girl seemed to take Gillian's discomfort more personally than Gillian herself. Sweet empathetic kid. He bloody well didn't deserve her. Knew that for a fact. "They didn't want her to come in?"

"Only if the stomach pain gets worse." Emily sent a pouting little glare toward the medications on the table and he imagined that it'd be a devastating blow to them had they actually been animate. "She wouldn't eat anything, though. I tried."

He felt his face break into a pleased and adoring grin before he could help it, felt it widen so far that his eyes crinkled up. "Made her dinner, didja?"

"I can cook too." Her face flinched into young annoyance, head tipping sharply away from the way he was teasing at her. "You're not special."

"You're a good girl, you are." Cal nabbed at her anyhow, fingers curling gently along the back of her neck and pulling her in. "Thank you."

He didn't see the smirk on her lips but he could hear it in her tone as she tilted her head into the kiss he was laying onto the side of her head. "Dad?"

"Yeah, love?"

Emily's head turned slowly, jaw angling down while her shoulder came up higher in a sort of self conscious hesitation. Cal watched her, caught the way she considered her thoughts before speaking and perked a smirk between them, realizing how sophisticated she seemed, and yards smarter than he'd been at her age too. "It just freaks me out a little. How... how much it changes her."

"Not changin' her a bit, darling," he softened the words, let his voice drop quieter while he ribbed her ear between his finger and thumb. "Still Gill."

"Just that Gill's never sick." She shook her head and glanced back down over her book, seemingly ignoring how affectionately he was rubbing her hair back even as she leaned her head closer to the movement.

"That's a lie. Woman's a damn influenza magnet." Cal tugged at a lock of her hair lightly, winking supportively when it drew her head back up.

"You know what I mean."

"I got this one, all right?" he assured her, nodding before he kissed at her temple. "Yeah? You let me worry. Okay?"

* * *

She had a book curled up in both hands and his comforter wedged up around her and despite the fact she still looked too pasty pale in the skin she was one of the prettiest things he'd seen in ever. "Hi."

"Hello, love." Cal clipped the door shut, letting his head angle steeply as he searched over her. He intentionally watched the stillness of her, waiting out the way she watched him back, waiting for a possible clue that would hint him into her mood, how she was feeling. "Mother Emily says you've refused your supper."

"I didn't want to offend her by vomiting it back up." And a smile, beautifully warm and expectant as she tucked her finger between pages to hold her place.

"She's a sturdy girl. Got big shoulders."

Gill nodded as she watched him move closer to the bed, her eyes still holding onto that smile even as her face laxed passive. "She's sweet. Where are we with Bergman?"

"I been thinkin', by the way," he conversationally answered, waving a hand between them as he dug the back of his heel into the carpet to dislodge his boot.

"Alert the media." A smile near twitched over lips that were too pale to be pink, too near to gray than he'd like.

"Cheeky." He leered at her intentionally as he jerked the buckle on his belt but shrugged off easily, still throwing his balance back and forth as he tried to toe his shoes off. "Thinkin' about Ben. Having him around today was... It was good."

"Ben?" Gill perked her voice up a little and he rolled his eyes despite the fact he knew she couldn't see it from her vantage point on the bed. "Ben Reynolds? Really?"

"Do us a favor, darling. I know you fixed that little reunion." One boot went toppling a little farther across the carpet than he'd meant as he turned back toward her, a grin widening on his lips. "And while the FBI was a ginormous pain right up my - "

"Point?"

Cal exhaled hard, shrugged as he yanked at his belt, tugging it from the loops with little patience and more energy than necessary. "Always felt a little more secure sendin' him round with you."

"Don't start this again, Cal," she seethed off, the book tucked into the front of her chest and hugged into her as a sort of source of strength – or shield from his supposed lunacy. "We've been on this case for two weeks and for some strange reason this man in particular is making you think that I'm some fragile little - "

"Not just him, is it? I mean, yeah, he's a creepy sod, but - "

"I'm fine," Gill demanded tightly, her face stark but still far too pale for him to believe in her words.

She was pale and ashen except for a brush of redness along each cheek, dark shadows under her eyes.

And that was exactly why, as he dropped the belt and started tugging up his shirt, he didn't plan to believe a word she was sayin'.

That and the fact that her voice was hushed, tight as she tried to convince him and herself of something that just wasn't entirely true.

"But say this works, yeah?" he muffled out past fabric, winging the shirt up over his head as he continued, tossing it into the tall wicker basket she'd wedged into the corner of his bedroom. "Say you're six months up the duff and some loon like Matheson strolls into the office with a gun, huh?"

He especially enjoyed the slightly perturbed flinch her face made at his phrasing just before she rolled him a droll glare, one of her brows arched even as her fingertips fiddled with the corner of her book page. Her body shifted and she finally settled the book down, flattening it open across her thighs as she gave him her attention. Placation, pure Gillian in execution. Even looked a little put out about it.

 _Excellent_ , right where he wanted her.

"That was years ago," Gill murmured, her tone going just as condescending as her facial features, her head dropped lazily back against the pillows. "Why is your dirty laundry on the floor and not in the basket?"

He caught the just barely visible shift of her eyes, followed the quick pass of her glance over his bare chest and the way she searched out his tattoos before she flicked a look back toward his eyes. There was a warmth on her face that betrayed any sort of attitude she was trying to sling his way and he grinned in response to it. His smile made her flush up in the realization that she'd been caught up by him, that he'd caught the way she'd been studying everything from forearms to shoulders and chest before matching his eyes again. All in a matter of moments.

"Years ago, yeah? Which means, knowin' you and I," Cal let the grin stay wide, leaning forward so that one of his knees was wedging onto the mattress beside her, "we're prob'ly about due again. Right?"

"You're cute," Gill sighed off, shaking her head back and forth slightly as he half crawled up over her, his mouth growling onto her throat and forcing her head farther back as he nuzzled her.

"Yeah?" He kissed along the side of her neck, groaning into the warm-bed and leftover-perfume smell of her.

"But also really annoying," Gill sighed the words into a humming sound, pleasure and comfort at once as her head relaxed farther back. "And making me sorta nauseous."

"Well, not the first time for that, is it?" He chuckled and dropped a chaste kiss against her mouth, catching the way she blinked rapidly in surprise when he stalled up his teasing.

"I do miss Ben, actually," she murmured, eyes drifting shut again as he kissed onto her cheek, let his lips rise on her jaw. "He was very... sturdy."

"You bein' funny?" he murmured onto her lips, a groan humming off him as he drew his head back and away from her. "Cuz I'm not laughin'."

It was her nails that lightly grazed the skin of his chest even as he started withdrawing from her. "Where are you going? Come snuggle with me, Lightman."

The sound that grit low in his throat was answer enough to the sweetness of her tone and she laughed as he forced himself back off the mattress and playfully lifted his hands into the air in supposed innocence. "You're puttin' something in your stomach even if I've gotta wedge it down your throat with a large stick or somethin'."

Her eyes slimmed beautifully, went sultry just the way they did whenever she was messin' with his head or luring him up closer for the kill. "You're so good at dirty talk. It's delightful, really."

" _Gillian_." He emphasized the bite to his tone with a finger pointed in her direction.

"Yes, fine. Food." Her agreement as she lifted her book again seemed more about amusement and affection than an actual desire to eat but he'd take it, either way. "Nothing spicy. Bland and soft."

Cal nodded, waggling his fingers between them before turning toward the door, "And that's why you leave the dirty talk to me, eh?"


	6. Chapter 6

Didn't start with mischief or any sort of teasing. Not on his part, anyhow. In fact, he hadn't intended on anything but speeding up their schedule so that she wouldn't be naggin' at him all morning about being late. They'd been delayed the last two mornings and he'd heard all about it, both days. Sure hadn't been entirely his fault, either. Not entirely. He wouldn't get so delightfully distracted if she didn't insist on lotioning her legs in his bedroom as he finished up showering every bloody morning. Was like she waited some days for the shut off of the shower, lotion in hand and one toned and stunning leg perched up on the edge of the mattress, calf tensed, ankle flexed.

But that particular distraction was exactly what he planned to detour, right?

That's just exactly why he'd figured, epitome of brilliance that he was, showering together would inevitably curb that exact situation from happening. And, therefore, keep them ( _him_ ) from temptation.

Sure, _aye-aye_ , that was exactly it.

"You sneaky son of a bitch."

Cal grinned at the swinging and surprised way she'd said it, letting his glance linger down the soapy back of her curves even as her chin turned toward her shoulder and she continued scrubbing. There'd been more amusement in her tone than he'd expected, more soft humor and pleasure than chastisement. His smile widened in happy surprise as he stepped into the naked and slick back of her, hands closing on her hips and prying her closer without apology.

"Keeping us on schedule." Cal lifted his jaw up from the damp tangle of her hair, angling his face into the space between her neck and shoulder instead. Both hands skidded up the soapy wet of her waist, happily rising up her ribs so that he could silk the soap in circles just below her breasts. His thumbs stayed digging along her ribs while fingertips went dancing through slick lather.

And he wasn't sure whether her sigh was pleased or annoyed. But, really, didn't much matter with Gill, not the way it had with Zoe. Because even minor annoyance, with Gillian, often led to humor. That he loved about her, that habit of finding the silver in crap linings. "This will _not_ keep us on schedule, Cal."

The smell of her body wash bloomed a whole new world into his bathroom, every morning now – and it still felt new, after months. It was one of the most delightful changes he'd noted yet, though. Because the fact that she nicked his dirty clothes right up after him, morning or night, had always annoyed the hell out of him. And the way she turned the coffee cups in the cupboard so that all the handles were curving in repetitive symmetry, _that_ drove him a bit past bonkers as well. She surreptitiously toed their shoes (his _and_ Em's) straighter and lined like soldiers just before slipping out of her heels and letting them bring up the rear.

But smelling her, the nearness and heat of her, in every room of his home?

It was starting to somehow alter the chemicals in his brain, he was sure.

Because it already smelled like home always should have.

"In theory," he murmured, chancing a lift of his hands so he could start massaging the lather along her breasts and unconsciously groaning into how good it felt to just blatantly stroke the warm weight of them up in his palms. "Saves us a good half hour, love."

She sighed harder, arms lifting up in response to his movements and her head tipping back in obvious resignation. "Unsound theory, Doctor Lightman."

He rumbled a pleased noise up behind her ear, let the sound echo against the break of her skull before he turned his teeth nipping on her ear lobe. "Let's test it, though. Yeah? Bein' scientists and all."

"You're incorrigible," she muttered, her hands flattening to his forearms as he closed up around her, creating a clutched up circle that had him tightening on her harder.

"It's true. You're absolutely correct," he cheerfully agreed, the taste of soap on his tongue. "I'm terrible. Kiss me."

"You're so annoying."

"And you're so delightfully wet, Foster." The teasing edged his voice deeper, grating it husky and low and near laughter as she snorted in response. "Mind outta the gutter, now. I was referring to - "

"Oh, shut the hell up."

He laughed freely into the turn of her body, letting her press those fantastic breasts right into him as her arms linked up around his shoulders. The shift gave him an exceptional double handful of her hips and he let himself step forward, driving her back into the stall wall so that the water was pounding down the back of his neck as he sought out another kiss. She let his mouth own hers and sank relaxed into how tightly he was pinning her up along the tile, her entire frame going loose with comfortable pleasure as she hummed into the kiss and drew a leg up onto his hip. The movement sank him farther center of her and he groaned on her tongue, sucking hard against it as she lifted her hips and skillfully had his erection pinned up between her thighs.

"Y'know, we don't _need_ to have sex every morning, Cal."

Which seemed exactly opposite to the fact she was purposefully shifting her hips just to tease his cock incrementally closer to exactly where he _needed_ to be.

"Firstly, you're the one needs to get - "

Gill's expression of annoyance was just as quick an interruption as her voice, " _Cal_."

"Well, pregnancy _is_ caused by one particular thing in the natural world, darling." He mugged at her after, stroking his hands up her sides, intentionally lightening the touch to nearly nothing so that her ribs pressed closer.

Her eyes slimmed in wry amusement as she nodded slowly, "Thank you for educating me, Professor Lightman."

"Secondly, you and I 'ave two very different definitions of the word 'need'." Cal kissed her lightly, letting his lips hover along the corner of her mouth after. "Because I'll _need_ you to lift the other leg here in a second."

The bemused smile she flashed him encompassed whole worlds for a moment and he just grinned back in response, feeling the unfettered honesty of it crinkle right into the corners of his eyes.

And her smile went even wider in response just before she blushed into laughter and let her head drop back, rivers of water making paths down her throat and collarbone that seemed to magnetically draw his mouth. Both his palms curled her into arching harder, forced her chest rising higher into his as he downed his mouth along her collarbone. A sound of complete and obvious pleasure thrummed up her throat and Cal smirked against wet skin, ignoring the tang of soap in favor of licking a line back up to the side of her neck.

He rubbed his lips up wet skin, nipping lightly toward her ear lobe, "So, you were sayin'? About not needing - "

"I love you," she whispered the interruption against his temple, her nails skimming skin while her hips thrust flush into his and nearly blanked his brain white. "Know that?"

"Deflection," he grunted back, biting on the grin that wanted to take over his mouth. "Tha's devious."

"Look at me, Cal." There was a delicious warmth to the way she curved one full palm on his cheek, her thumb wiping water from his left eye.

She waited quietly for him to meet her eyes once again, the brightness of her smile somehow matching with the sharp scent of the soap and the mineral heat of the water. "Good morning."

"Mornin', darling." The smile he gave her back went sheepish and he felt himself go more shy than even he'd expected, snorting out a laugh as he shook his glance down the front of her. "Sleep well?"

His fingers traced a trail from her shoulder to her collarbone, lingering along the line until it dipped and he could run them down between her breasts.

"Very. You?" Gill asked quietly, letting her head tip into the question as his other hand went skimming on her hip, gripping down against the back of her thigh and lifting.

"Quite soundly. C'mere, my love," Cal murmured into her sweetness and tugged tighter under her knee, groaning happily as he leaned forward and pulled her up completely at once. "Fancy meetin' you in here."

She hummed a low sound toward his ear, tightening around him completely as both her fingers and the water played with his hair. "We have a very tight schedule today, Lightman. Meetings, my appointment with - "

"Well," Cal grinned into near kissing her, keeping his mouth a teasing breath from hers, "y'know how I love a challenge."


	7. Chapter 7

"Don't." She shirked her shoulder up from the light touch, drawing from the way his fingertips cupped under her elbow just after the quieted echo of his steps behind her. "I don't need to talk about it."

"Gill."

And she flexed her fingers tighter around the railing at how softly his voice curled around her name. She leaned forward and blankly stared out onto the city, watched the way dusk clouded over everything and made the sky a bruised palette of purples and blues and near eerie greens. Spring was usually so warm to her, so sweet and hopeful. She loved Spring in the District. She loved living in a place that bloomed and burst with Cherry Blossoms and heat and sudden pleasure as the temperature of life warmed back up.

She had needed to find that simple and natural love before she could have this particular discussion - and especially when he used such a cautiously concerned tone of voice. It was unnatural on him, worrying even. As though his very concern was a clue that maybe... maybe she should just give it up. Maybe the only birth and bloom she could find solace in was Spring. Maybe they were only ever meant to be a partnership of two, a pair and nothing more. Because, while Emily certainly treated her as family... it wasn't entirely the same. It would never be as she wanted, as even he wanted. It was what they had and maybe just quietly accepting that was the most intelligent move any one of them could make.

"Cal, just don't." Gill shook her head slightly and stared ahead, felt his fingers run up under her forearm despite her arguing tone. His other hand found its way along her waist and she tried not to tense against it but, God, she didn't know if she could hold her own against this unprecedented sweetness. "Okay?"

"Gillian."

He'd said her name the very same fractured way as she'd walked out of the obstetrician's office earlier, her head up and face an impenetrable wall of nothingness. Intentionally so, and especially with him so damn close to her. She'd kept that placid stillness on her face, cloaked it over her entire body the whole drive back and she had promptly ditched his concerned watching as soon as they'd gotten back to the office.

And, yes, she'd avoided him for hours, immersed herself in work until even she couldn't stand it. Because she'd known _exactly_ what was coming, seen it haunting in his eyes every time he'd looked at her.

She'd known just by the lingering fear and sadness in his voice (because he kept saying her name like she was... _delicate_ ).

By the way he'd so purposefully and professionally watched her face as she'd been told, once again, that nothing seemed to be working. That there were no changes made, no alteration. That she was a failure at this, still. And always. And always and _Christ_ , she was fucking tired of it already.

"Cal."

Losing the strength in her voice, in her posture, God, it certainly hadn't been intentional. But his body had found its way warmly close up along the back of her in a reaction so instantaneous that she was emotionally touched by it. He was sturdy and surprisingly consistent, he was strength. One of his arms was looped on her waist and the other hand had stretched her arm to close around the railing as well, their fingers linked and locked up together around its coolness.

"It's all right, darling." He flexed his fingers around hers, turning his mouth against her right ear. He kept his voice intentionally upbeat, even in its quietness, its simplicity. "It's fine. Let's be done with it, huh?"

She just shook her head minutely, enough to imply her confusion but not brush away his closeness. She needed him close this time. And he seemed to know it too. "I thought - "

"S'all right," he kissed into her hair, left the words against silky warmth. "We're done. No more."

Wait. That hadn't at all been what she was implying, or even thinking.

She shored up hard in his arms, jaw striking downward at an angle to his murmuring.

"You don't make decisions for the both of us, remember?" Gillian turned in the circle he'd made around her, leaning her shoulders back so that she could watch the run of his reaction on his face. "Partners? Staying on the same page?"

His eyes went thin and tight, "Yeah? And this page is exactly where I didn't want to go. You gettin' your hopes up and then - "

"I was so sure. I was sure that with you..." There was a sharp little shrug in her shoulders, a jolted shift in her body before she slumped back into the rail and let him lean closer to keep them entangled. "It would be different."

The implication seemed to crumble his resolve a little, a distinct aching brightening his eyes as he searched over her face. It was a minuscule moment but she could see the sway on him, the way it tugged at the slim little bit of optimism that lived so deeply inside of him that even she (the person who had access to more Lightman emotions than most anyone else) could rarely tug on it. He stayed solid though, because after a moment his head shook back and forth pragmatically. A sigh huffed off his lungs as he lifted his palm to the side of her head and gripped into her hair, tugged her head back as he matched her eyes.

"See? You're too much a romantic." He sounded apologetic even as he said it, voice thick with remorse and as though he hated having to chastise her but she needed the lesson in reality. Patronizing, maybe, but from the best of his intentions. That much she could see. "Y'can't help bein' hopeful. Love you for it but one of us has to be the voice of reason, eh?"

A half smirk tugged her lips at the idea of Cal Lightman being _reasonable_.

It seemed as though the only situations wherein he could be so unfailingly logical were the moments that involved the safe-guarding of her heart and the physical protection of her.

"Since when are you the reasonable one?" she asked with a half sad laugh, watching him smile at the question and shrug self consciously, grinning at the accusation.

The smile drifted off though, dropped away as he loosened his palm from her hair and stroked down her cheek instead.

"Since I saw your face today." It was honesty in the otherwise vacant hush of his voice, just honesty and reality. "That broken look on you? Not worth it anymore. Not for me."

Her eyes shut as she swallowed down a gulp air, squeezing tighter closed even as she spoke. "I can't give up yet."

" _Gillian_."

"No, Cal. Not yet. Please?" She made the ' _please_ ' softer than the rest and it near instantly had him glaring at her up from under his lashes, an accusatory finger coming up to aim feigned annoyance directly at her.

She could get most anything off him with that particular ' _please_ ' and they both knew it.

She tried not to use it that often but this was different. This was on a whole new level of different.

"Then we agree to a timetable, at the least," Cal argued but quietly, gently and with the intent of compromise. Which surprised the hell out of her, even as he waved that finger between the two of them, his words continuing quickly. "Yeah? We decide when enough is enough and stick to it, all right?"

Gill cocked him a glance that was all doting and actual amusement. He was being sweet as hell with her and she could only imagine it was because she could still feel the roundness of tears widening her eyes. He truly hated it when she cried. It was emotion amplified. "You really are being uncharacteristically logical."

"Really bloody hate seein' you heartbroken, tha's all.," Lightman exhaled hard, his hands dropping to her hips so that he could hug her up closer. "'Specially when it's my fault."

"Martyr," Gillian murmured dryly as his head went down into her shoulder, forehead nudging against her in a near childish movement of affection.

He winked on a grin, nodding bashfully into her quiet tease. "Guilty."

A matched sigh went between the two of them, meeting them up again on some sort of emotionally even ground.

"Y'want the in vitro?" Cal asked cautiously, head angling.

And she paused, gave herself the time to consider a full answer before just reacting. "I don't know. That seems... like an awfully big a hope to come back from, y'know?"

"Agreed." He looked wholly relieved at her honesty, shoulders laxing down a little as he nodded. "So, gimme a number."

"A number?" Her blue eyes matched to his in slight confusion, blinking rapidly as she wiped fingertips against her eyes and cheeks.

"How much longer? With the hormone treatments?"

She lifted a questioning shoulder even as she suggested "A year."

Cal physically winced at the words, head shaking once and sharp. "Six months."

"Eight it is," she deduced, watching him blink acceptance.

"And I'll eat that healthy crap you keep tryin' to shove in my face."

Gillian smiled into the begrudging admittance and the way his voice lowered and rumbled as he said it. She let him pull at her, let him draw the both of them from the railing but slowly. She put her steps into a lagged pattern after his, her movement going forward as he stepped backwards for the door. Still, even as he swayed his steps back, he kept them touching and linked and even when his hand left her hip it caught at her fingers. The heat of his palm pressed hers as he twisted their fingers together playfully and pulled her closer. Cal turned himself into her side, leaning up along her as they moved back into his office and into warmer air.

"Wouldn't kill you to eat better anyhow," she murmured to the side, feeling him tighten up on her right and lean closer as the comfortingly familiar scent of his office surrounded them. "Or drink less."

"Wouldn't hurt to get you naked more often either, now would it?" he whispered up against her ear, the hum of his accent and the low rumble of his voice spiking her spine straighter.

The heat and heart of him so close and affectionate had her leaning a sigh into him, letting him loop up around her waist and tug closer so that she was turned more into him. "Actually, it's better to - "

"Don't schedule my sperm, darling." His other hand loosened from hers and went winging around before them as he spoke, his voice carrying louder as he teased at her. "They're sorta... free souls, y'know?"

"Not anymore, they aren't." Her tone shattered the illusion of any possible argument, so sure of herself as her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt front and tugged him closer. "Mine."

Cal's eyes widened a little, his brows lifting into the familiarity of a cheeky smirk and a happy tip of his head. "Love it when you get saucy, y'know that?"

"I do, actually."

"You're all I need, know that? You and Em?" His voice had gone straight on from teasing to sincere as one fingertip stroked down her throat. "I got everything already. You _do_ know that?"

"I know," she murmured, her head dipping forward as he made a conscious effort to meet her eyes and draw out the sweetness of a smile. "I just don't want to give up so easily. You and I don't give up, do we?"

Another grin, this one proud, went over his lips as he let his palm lay along one side of her neck, voice heavy with affection. "And you accuse me of bein' stubborn."


	8. Chapter 8

If there was one thing he would never complain about – it was Gillian Foster lazily crawling onto his lap while wearing a skirt tight enough that both his hands had to skid it up by the palms and insistent pressing. And she certainly didn't need to tell him twice to catch up, nor not even once. Not when she smiled at him with yards of warmth and leaned her forehead into his. Her body pressing forward so that her palms curved on his shoulders and her knees met the cushions of the chair at his sides. The familiarity of her body was a comfort to him, a balm that he never realized he needed until they were pressed up together and he was enjoying the perfect tactile existence of _her_.

"Hello, darling," he murmured, lifting his mouth to hers as her eyes fluttered shut sweetly. She always seemed a Romantic (and yeah, capital letter worthy) without being a sap of one, without the flounce and fancy and the saccharin of a bodice ripper novel. She didn't need swoony or smarmy trappings to be his Capital-R-for-Romance-Woman.

Loved that about her, really.

He loved how sensually warm she seemed when she kissed him sometimes. It always felt like he just had handfuls of fresh silk and curves and heat. Loved her in this position too, actually. She always seemed so sure of herself, so strong with it. A sound slipped from between her lips and onto his tongue as he dug the fabric of the skirt higher, edged it up on her hips toward her waist. She tasted like a frothy afternoon Chai Latte, just about how she usually tasted by three in the afternoon, and that was just as comforting as the feeling of her settling heavier against him. Cal stroked his palms down the outsides of her thighs, gripping down tighter against tensed muscle the farther south his palms slid. His hands plied her closer intentionally, angling her into him as he continued to kiss her strongly, no regrets about it.

Her bottom lip was already pinked up and swollen from his teeth as she pulled her head back and he couldn't draw his eyes off from it as he tucked her closer instead, pulling at her waist first. "Fancy findin' you here."

Gill just rolled her eyes, the blue of them somehow simmering like scalding water. "Don't get cute."

"Cause I'm already adorable and it'd be a step downward?"

"Cal, _shut up,_ " she asserted softly but stridently, one of her palms lifting so that she could cup his chin between her fingers and thumb. She angled his mouth back to hers and whimpered, the whole of her body striking tense and taut as he slid his hand up between her thighs.

"Really was in the middle of something, Gill." His tone was an utter tease, all pomp and swagger as he ribbed the fabric of her panties between fingers and his thumb, making sure his knuckles grazed at her, and often. "I mean - "

She thrust her upper body back from him with the force of an outstretched arm and a palm in the center of his chest, her shoulders strong and back with confidence as she gave him an arched look. " _Really?_ "

"No, sweetheart," he chuckled, feeling his face flush as she side-eyed him. Cal gave her a gamely pout, played it up warmly and let it lean into grinning as she slowly started settling back into him. "Come back here and let me - "

Shut the hell up while she kissed him senseless.

What in the bloody hell was – no, never mind.

He didn't wanna question it.

 _Lead on, Naughty McFoster._

Because desire, on Gillian, was something utterly mind blasting to him and he worshiped at its altar. He'd worship on her for as long as she'd let him. Because she always knocked him sidelong. Beautiful, she was and her desire just amped things up. Absolutely gorgeous. It started on the bright blown edges of the blue in her eyes and followed down the elegant stretch of her throat to right between -

"I just needed you," she pouted at him after she'd ended the kiss, her fingertips tugging at the 'V' in his shirt collar as she went self conscious and shrugged at him. "Need you _now_ , Cal."

Well... he was officially flummoxed.

And instantly fully hard.

"Right here, ain't I?" He had her shirt untucked from the snug waistline of her skirt quicker than even he'd figured he could manage, the other hand finding its way inside her underwear. "C'mere."

"Don't say ' _ain't_ '," she argued and then whimpered as he finally stroked his fingers into wetness. A haughty grin took his face as he hooked a finger inside her and watched her shiver, his thumb tapping on her clit. Another finger slid into her and he felt her muscles tighten on him reflexively, her head banking back on her shoulders as her entire body arched. The very shift of her hips, the way her spine arched, just the movement throbbed him harder as he started teasing on her clit, using the pad of his thumb to push pressure and release.

He curled the fingers that were inside her, tugging her closer with a growl on warm skin, "Will if I want."

* * *

It was the satisfied hum that she made after she'd drenched his fingers that made him grin like a loon, the hum and the way her fingertips, the soft brush of her nails, tickled on his forearm. He gently pressed the inside of one thigh, letting her come down slowly and shakily as she leaned her face forward onto his shoulder with a moan. Cal grinned even wider, the other arm looping her closer by the waist, hugging her in while he turned his face and buried it into her hair.  
"I love you," she mumbled into his shoulder, one of her hands pulling at his so that she could tangle their fingers up, knot them and pry them up into her stomach before she turned her face closer to his neck. "So much, Cal."

He let himself enjoy her loving after responding in kind, dwelled warm in the feel of it and let it envelope the both of them as he tucked her in close. Unconsciously he let himself stroke his free hand against her hair, rubbing his fingers into it and against the back of her head. Little kisses went straying on her temple and along her hairline as she hugged closer, trapping his still entangled fingers up agaist her stomach. She kept them locked up together and that's when it clicked, really.

That's when the words formed a sentence in his head that he spoke before he'd entirely realized their meaning.

"You pregnant, Gill?" he asked quietly, feeling a little dazed himself and still trying to make it down outta the brain-clouds while he muzzed through her hair. "Are you?"

"I don't know." Her whispered admittance stilled him suddenly and it was a moment before he pulled his head up, the arm that encircled her tightening a little to keep her in place as he squinted a discerning look at her. "Maybe."

"You lyin'? Look at me, Gillian." The hand that had caught into her hair loosened and he used it to draw her face up farther, forcing her to hold his searching glance. "Are you pregnant?"

"I think maybe," she admitted, the words easy between them. Easier than he'd expected, at least. She was so loosely honest with him, not guarding or reserved. Straight up information and truthful responses to questions. God, she was guileless. It was gorgeous.

"Maybe?" he squawked at her, shaking his head minutely as she blinked. "Y'think maybe?"

"Cal - "

"Think _maybe_ we should find out?" He heard his own voice rise in pitch, heard his tone go astray and damn near... afraid. He was suddenly terrified and excited all at once. He was suddenly mashed up between worried and afraid and happy as hell, flummoxed and pleased at once.

"I think you should hush about it while we're at work."

" _Gillian_." His face panned out so that his features were flat, revealing nothing as he watched her eyes go brighter with mirth. "Can't just ignore it now. If you're... y'know."

"We'll find out, all right?" she laughed into his mouth, offering the simple but delicate taste of her moaning onto his tongue and he took it without reservation.

He slowed her kisses after enjoying them a moment, though. Intentionally sipped them off her gently and quietly and with a tenderness that had her whole body slumping into him comfortably. She dropped against him again like she implicitly trusted him to guard her back from the outside world. Her trust in him was something that always kept him wary and worried and on his toes. There was always that niggling in the back of his brain that said he was gonna let her down someday.

"Wanna know now, Gill."

A breathy sound passed through her nose, like a silent laugh. "You can wait."

She smiled as she looked over his face, her lids low and lashes heavy as she blinked and studied his obvious anticipation. He was more widely aware than she was in her sated dazing and he watched her distractedly shake her hair out of her face before he took the initiative and lifted both hands. Both his palms stroked her hair back from her face and he curled it up in his fingers, keeping the locks knotted still as he used the position to force her to face him entirely.

"How long?" he asked quietly, enjoying the way her hair shifted and sifted between his fingers as he purposelly watched her eyes.  
Gill just smiled and leaned farther into the hold of his hands. "Depends on you."

"You mean it depends on how long this lasts? This little - "

"Yes," she agreed through laughter, her own fingers catching up the sweated fabric of his shirt so that she could tug on it playfully.

Cal's whole body went slack and he pulled her gently along with him, his spine relaxing into the cushioning while he sighed. "Darling, I'm ready now."

"For sex or the other thing?"

"Whichever," he mugged at her, a silly and taunting grin on his face as she laughed. He started smoothing her back together, righting her clothing and fixing it up with slow hands and certain reverence. "I actually meant how long's it been since your last cycle?"

Her face went sheepish and apologetic. He watched it happen, watched it pale her features as she avoided his eyes with what looked like almost sadness. No, not sadness. Guilt. For not telling him about it sooner. "Nearly two weeks late."

"C'mon then." He had her up as quickly as possible, his hands curving on her and fussing at her skirt even as she laughed, leaning into his movements as he met her with his own chuckle and snugged the two of them closer together. Cal grinned, looking down over her as he started stepping backwards toward his office door, his steps slow and mincing as he tried to walk off the erection.

"Let's you and I take a pee on a stick. Loo for two."

She was still trying to re-button her shirt as he pulled her along, fighting against the fact that he was untucking every bit of fabric she'd just managed to tuck back in. "There's no saying it's yours, y'know."

"Psssh," he tossed off the sound at her, feeling a massive grin overtake him as he watched her smile up at him affectionately, her fingers fidgeting at her buttons nervously, "Like anyone else could get the job done."

"You're such an ass."


	9. Chapter 9

This chapter will be more of an epilogue than anything, really. I may go back and fill in if the mood strikes. Time has definitely passed here but I think questions are still answered. If you like it - thank 'pjstillnoon' because I'm just not sure I ever would have finished this otherwise! If you hate it, blame me. Any and all errors are also solely my fault. Thank you for sticking with me and reading this far regardless!

* * *

He caught the movement in his peripheral, knew the sniffled sound that came from the direction of his doorway and blinked a smile over his paperwork. He didn't need to look up to see the boy wipe his hand against his nose, knew the head cold had been deftly eroding his manners at lightning speed. Cal simply reached back and blindly grabbed the tissues from the shelving behind his desk, dumped the box past his paperwork and onto the corner of the wood as the boy crept farther into the room.

He grinned unconsciously when he did look up, head still down but glancing over the rims of his glasses as his son slipped past the couch and angled straight for the desk. The child looked like an over puffed marshmallow, bundled in the thickest winter coat they probably had in the house and a hat edged down on his head. A raccoon shaped hat, ears and all, knit with a banded black mask and a little nose.

It was absolutely, utterly, ridiculous. Fodder for older kids to pick at.

(He'd bought it for the boy months ago, teased Gill by wearing it 'round the kitchen just to get her to laugh after he'd done something especially stupid.)

"Got a rodent on your head, mate. Your sister make you wear that?"

"Raccoon is a mammal, Dad." Jack leaned the front of the puffed coat up into the desk ledge, little fingers already searching for something to mess with. Cal rolled the pen he'd been using into his son's searching fingers, watched the child nab at it as he sniffed. His tone had been full of Gillian, all cocky wisdom and I-know-better-than-you. Loved it when the boy so blatantly mimed his mother, he did. Sorta loved the flicked up little wisp of a curl that was peeking out from under that stupid hat too.

"Well, s'cuse me then. I sit corrected. C'mere," he murmured, motioning around the desk.

Cal noted that the child clicked the pen a couple times before (supposedly) surreptitiously pocketing it, his steps slow as he rounded the desk and lifted his head back expectantly. Christ, poor kid looked like a walkin' target from under that hat. Least she hadn't made the boy wear his glasses too. Woulda sealed his fate should any proper bullies have seen him in a hat that had a tail.

"I get a kiss?" He tapped on his jaw as he bent, smirking into the exuberant kiss the kid laid onto his cheek.

Cal leaned back in the chair, stretched out tired shoulders and tugged a playful little jerk against the front of the enormous jacket. His other hand crossed over, fingers pinching the fabric still so that he could unzip the coat and motion for the boy to take it off. Jack just let the fabric shrug off him, the coat making a loud shushing noise as it puddled to the office floor. Cal brought his hand up, tugging the hem of the hat before backing his knuckles against the boy's forehead, feeling more heat there than expected.

"Mum said I couldn't leave the house without somethin' on my head." The boy leaned away from the press of his father's fingers, stretching into the shelving that lined the window so that he could study the litter of items there. Small fingers caught the edge of a photo of Gillian laughing even as he continued rambling with an obviously stuffed up tone. "Snowin' some. And she said - "

"Your mum's a brilliant woman. Do as she says." Cal softly interrupted the oncoming ramble, knew it'd likely never end if he didn't distract the child from it. "She bring you 'stead of Em?"

His son didn't answer and in the silence he turned his head, making a noise of questioning and humming it through his lips as he watched the boy nod as he stroked against one of the tribal masks that was set up behind the myriad of photos. Cal watched the child trace the round blackness of one eye on the mask, his little fingertip carefully following the ridged line.

"Still snifflin'?" he asked as he pressed his knuckles into the back of Jack's neck, frowning at the heat there and turning the chair enough that he could stroke his hand higher and up under the hem of the hat again.

His son groaned a peevish little noise of annoyance but let his father press fingers flat on his forehead. "Lil' bit."

"Got a little fever. You just relax awhile, all right?" Cal fixed the hat back down on the boy's head, forcing himself to turn away from the fact that little hands had freed the mask and drawn it closer for curious and interested inspection. He tried focusing on his paperwork again, a bemused smile flitting his lips as another sniffle echoed from the left of him. "Need to finish this up."

"Dad?"

He sighed into rolling his eyes, head half turning from the court transcripts he'd been trying to sort through. "Yes, my love?"

"Can I have this?"

It was comical, in a way. The boy had the mask up over his face, little fingers pinched along the edges and a clogged up tone in his voice. Cal let his elbow sink into the arm of the chair, rubbing on his own smile before he set his chin into his palm and caught the way the child was watching him. There was a hopeful little smile in the boy's eyes, his energy bouncing back a little as Cal unintentionally chuckled and sighed from the bottom of his lungs.

"Y'want a Papuan Sepik mask? For what exactly?" he hummed back the question quietly.

"You're not usin' it."

He grinned at the sharpness of the boy's retort, how nearly accusing it was. "Jack - "

"I can pay for it."

Oh, _really_? And how'd he come into wealth? Cal laughed again, let the sound out without realizing it was already rising up his throat. His head lifted, hand stretching out to rub into his son's shirt, noting that the smile in the boy's eyes got brighter as he tugged and clutched them up closer. Christ, he looked like Gill when he smiled like that, especially when there was so much innocent excitement scrunching up little bright and blue eyes.

"Can you, then?" The mask slipped a little as he tugged Jack even closer by the fabric of his shirt, drawing them together so that he could lean a look at blue eyes with a playful squint. "How much y'got?"

A lighter color of pleading entered the boy's eyes, his voice softening as his father's forehead pressed into the wood of the mask, "Emmy gave me money."

"M'not dealin' for dimes, son." Cal told him succinctly, voice quiet but sharp with assertion. "Pony up."

Cal leaned back as the mask started coming down, bit against a reflexive smile as his child hugged the coveted prize into his chest and sniffed. One shoulder shot up with a shrug, eyes darkening before they shifted away. He saw the moment wherein his son distinctly considered lying to him, saw the evolution of it, as though he could see the idea cogging its way through the kid's nimble little brain. Cal lifted his jaw, thinned his eyes and held a sharpened up look over the boy. After a moment Jack brought a glance back up in his father's direction, his small shoulders sinking after a sigh. Cal made a noise, cleared his throat a little and squinted harder, lifting a finger to tap on the boy's forehead.

"I gots eighteen seventy two." Jack admitted with an honesty that sounded sad and begrudging.

"To the penny, eh?" Cal quieted his tone even farther, making a wincing face of legitimate apology as he settled his elbow back against the arm of the chair. "Worth much more than that, unfortunately. Poor luck, that is."

"Bet I can afford it." Her voice carried an affectionate heat throughout the room and he felt its warmth just by watching the sharp turn of his son's head and the excited grinning that followed. "I've got a little stashed away for a new..."

"Sepik." He blithely supplied as he turned to look at her, appreciating the cocked way she was leaned against his office door frame. Her hips were aslant, one of them flared out and her arms crossed under her breasts.

He adored it when she stood so cocked and assured, especially when that right hip angled so sharply in his sight line. Always reminded him of idly rubbing on that particular hip, tucked up against her back and stroking against her pelvic bone while they both watched the baby sleep soundly at her other side. That first month of fussiness and frayed nerves, when she'd been terrified wide in the eyes and cried at the drop of a bloody fuckin' dime. When they'd both been sleep deprived and snappish with each other but, hell, even a tentative half hour nap-time of silence had been enough to just bring them back closer. It'd been enough to lay his jaw against her upper arm, rubbing fingertips against the fabric of her clothes while he watched his son breathe through sleep.

"Sepik mask," Gill murmured on a wry smile, her brow arching into seriousness. "Name your price."

He couldn't cage the grin, knew it was feral and uncontrollable even before it had fully taken over his lips. "It'd be indecent in front of the child."

Her eyes went slimming in that gloriously sensual way, the seductive dip of her jaw right along with it as she cocked him a half smile and a knowing look. And he noted the tightening of her arms, the way the fingers of one hand stroked against her opposite sleeve as she shrugged minutely, her head resting into the frame as he grinned wider in response. A smile flushed over her lips before she shook her head and rolled her eyes into amusement, blinking before pushing off the door frame and leaning into the room. She was wearing that brilliant blue sleeveless dress he liked but she'd layered a woolen coat over it, hidden those shoulders from him. Probably on purpose too, just to keep him from getting distracted. Sounded like something she'd do.

"It's a deal." There was a promising heat in the hushing of her agreement as she walked full into the room, her gaze falling to his side. Those pretty features he liked to kiss on sheared back toward serious as she looked over the boy. "What'd I tell you about daddy's office today?"

Jack was already pouting, had realized he was in trouble right about when she'd tipped that mothering look over him. The mask went hugged tighter against his chest, as though it were a shield against her obvious accusation. "No-Go Zone."

"And where are you now?" Gill let her voice go lighter though, her body loosening relaxed as she sank into one of the chairs across from the desk and motioned the boy closer with an admittedly dazzling smile.

Cal watched how easily the boy fell mad in love with his mother's smile, how quickly it salvaged any supposed disappointment and mended them up so that Jack sped into stepping closer to her. He couldn't save himself from grinning again, even if it did make him look like a right doting idiot. Was worth it, when it was just the three of them, when he could just enjoy the two of them close and safe and being happily silly. Made him wish Emily had joined them, though. Especially considering she was actually home for awhile. He wanted them all comfortably lounging in his office so that he could utterly avoid doing any actual work and just adore his family.

"In daddy's office." Jack told her proudly, still clutching the mask even as he leaned into her bare knee and set the mask against her crossed legs. Cal snorted a breath of a laugh as she arched an eyebrow between them, a look that said 'your fault'. She tugged at their son's shirt, implying he should join her in the over-sized chair as she shifted her skirted hip enough that the child could sit with her.

"Mmmm hmm. That's what I thought." She murmured as she balanced the boy's movements, her arms cuddling all of him, even snotty sniffed nose, up along her side.

Her head was upturned so she could study him, jaw lifted as Jack left the tribal mask to her care and hooked an arm against her shoulders, caught her hair tangled up in unconsciously searching fingers. Cal caught the wincing movement in her eyes before both her hands lifted, the mask forgotten crooked in her lap as she palmed the child's face and held it still. There was a distinctly calculating look on her face, something determined and strong.

She stroked her fingers across reddened cheeks and under the hat, "You have a fever, don't you? That's new."

He decided not to tell her they'd already ascertained as much...

But really, only because it was a certain sorta delicious seeing her so sweetly play mother.

"How come you got so much money?" Jack asked with a look that was near shrewd, awfully demanding for such a young thing.

"I don't have all that much money, baby." Her fingertips rode down under the hat, slid against the back of the child's neck and rubbed there lightly a moment before she shook her head. "What makes you think - "

"Got enough for the mask."

Cal didn't realize he'd laughed all that loudly until the both of them turned their heads into looking at him. Was adorable itself, really. The fact that their expressions were so entirely opposite, one confused and one impatiently accusing, but their eyes were so similarly beautiful and pinned on him none-the-less. Had him grinning like a loon. Gill cocked him a half attempt at a glare and rolled her eyes, stretching her hand across the desk blindly as he continued to chuckle. Cal reached down and nabbed up the boy's coat from the floor, the fabric making a rush of noise as he passed it over.

"Mum's got a mint hidden away, son." He secreted the whisper over the desk louder than necessary, catching the glare she pitched at him as she started a sleeve up the boy's arm. "Trust me on that."

"Get your coat on." The utter evasion of his teasing had him leaning back hard into the chair, near pouting as she kept at getting the child's coat on. Cal felt his face go crestfallen, schooled the expression and blanked his features as Jack gave him a lilting and slightly sleepy smile. "Let's go."

Jealousy instantly flushed through him, along with a slip of impending loneliness at losing their presence.

"Where ya goin' in your rodent hat?" He launched himself from the chair, side-stepping the desk as Gill fiddled the boy's coat zipper up, the mask already dumped aside to the top of the desk. "Huh?"

"Meetin' Emmy." His son answered, looking all stuffed and ballooned again in the hefty coat. Cal gripped into the fabric and flexed his arms up, fingers wrenching it balled into his fists so he could lever the child's whole body up, forcing Jack to find footing against the papers that were scattered over the desk.

"Oh, yeah?" He asked with legitimate interest, leaning forward as his son swung both arms against his shoulders happily, very obviously adoring the attention he was getting from both parents. "Where? Home?"

"Not home. Don Lobos in an hour and now we're probably headed to the pediatrician's after." Gill's voice skated a prickling heat up the back of his spine and he sighed out as Jack's arms viced around his head, squeezing as the kid tried to giggle past a stuffed up nose. Her hands were a soothing warmth to match, both of them rubbing into his lower back and skirting his sides as she stood into him. "How far along did you get?"

"About half through." Cal answered dejectedly as he lifted his head, arms wrapping tightly around the boy in response to the way Jack tried to trap him up again with giggles. "You're takin' both my children to lunch without me?"

He growled playfully into squeezing on the puffy coat, swung the boy down off the desk and sent him toward the book shelves to the side of his desk, mask in tow. Cal watched the child even as he enjoyed how warm she felt leaned up the back of him, how comfortably she fit the angling of her body against his ass and the backs of his thighs. Both her arms had snaked around him as he'd stood again, linked loosely on his torso as her chin propped onto his shoulder. They were both watching how closely Jack was clutching the mask with one entire arm, the other hand already fiddling with an antique globe that was mounted at the base of the shelving unit.

"You think I didn't know he'd entirely disregard what I said and come in here anyhow? Why do you think we're here, Cal?" Her whisper kissed heat and sweetness on the shell of his ear, made his spine twitch as he grabbed at her hands and squeezed on them with a private grinning.

The smile got wider when she nuzzled behind his ear and he felt it flood his voice. "You're takin' me _and_ both my kids to lunch?"

"Oh," Gill laughed into kissing the side of his head, "I'm not paying for it."

"Well, you're the one that's loaded, 'pparently."

"Do you want to join us or not?" she asked divisively, her jaw lifted and her voice a trim and tight.

Cal pursed his lips up at her, watched as she disentangled and forced him to let go. She slapped his hands away from her playfully as she aimed hurrying their son along. He feigned a pout in her direction when she wouldn't let him get his hands at her hips again but he followed along anyhow. "I get my mask back, right?"

Gill tossed a glance behind her and waved over his desk quickly, her body still shifting easily across the room so that "You can pry it out of his tiny hands while he's sleeping off a fever, selfish bastard. Finish up."

He simply slapped the laptop closed with one hand while grabbing his jacket up into the other. "Right, I'm comin'."

It didn't take him long to follow out of his office behind them, swinging his coat on and shutting lights off along the way. His keys were jangling in his pocket as he sped his steps up, having locked the office door in record time. And he made it up behind them just in time for his own flesh and blood to narc on him.

"Dad doesn't know raccoon's a mammal."

He grinned at that one, watched Gillian breath out a light laugh as she turned her head down over the boy with a sad shrug in explanation, "Your dad's a very silly little man, sweetheart. We can't expect him to know everything."

"Oi." He interrupted sharply and broke Gill's hold, grabbing the child up from behind with quickened steps and sure hands. He swung Jack up onto his hip and kept his steps fast, passing her by with a feigned glare. "Know enough."

"Mammals're different from rodents."

"Yeah? Shows what you know, boy." Cal kissed sharply against the child's cheek, lips shifting over too warm skin to test the fever without letting the boy know it. "Rodents _are_ mammals, from the order _Rodentia_. From the Latin ' _rodere_ '."

"What'sit mean?" Curiousity made bright eyes to lighter, flared them like star shine and wonderment.

"To gnaw. Like nibbles," Cal answered, grinning as he felt Gill lean up into his left side, her hand curling up into the inside of his arm. "Name me a rodent then."

Jack made a hummed noise, thoughtful as he sniffed and then tucked his head down, "Mouse."

"Good," he agreed. "Beaver. Hamster."

"Rat."

Lightman just grinned, even as Gill's fingers flexed into his bicep in warning. "Uncle Loker."

"Cal!"


End file.
